The government has unveiled its new branding for T-levels, in what has been described as the “first step” toward raising awareness ahead of their rollout in September 2020.

The ‘NexT Level’ brand logo (pictured), designed by marketing firm Havas Worldwide London Ltd, to the tune of £250,000, has been shared exclusively with FE Week as a sneak peek to a full branding toolkit, which will include leaflets and “social assets” and be released in “due course”.

An extra £3 million will now be handed to Havas for the implementation of a campaign in 2019/20 to help recruit the first wave of students for the new technical qualifications.

Raising awareness of T-levels among parents and employers is proving to be a huge challenge for the Department for Education. In September, a survey of over 1,000 parents of children aged 11 to 18 commissioned by the Chartered Management Institute found that two-thirds had never heard of the qualifications.

The department is also struggling to convince enough employers to offer the lengthy industry placement component of T-levels, which must last a minimum of 315 hours. Up to 100,000 industry placements will be taken each year when the full rollout commences.

“T-levels will be the biggest change to technical education in a generation,” said skills minister Anne Milton. “Right from the start we have worked with employers, young people, their parents and education providers. I want more and more people to understand that T-levels are a high-quality, advanced and desirable qualification, with employers at the heart of their design.

“I can’t wait for more people to learn about what T-levels have to offer and how they can open up a world of exciting options.”

The DfE said the branding has been designed in consultation with employer panel members, FE providers, young people and parents.

A procurement for a firm to lead on the work was put out by the department earlier this year and won by Havas in February. The contract is expected to run for 26 months.

Tender documents show that for the development of a “T-level brand and campaign strategy development and some initial implementation” the successful bidder would receive £250,000.

There has been a slight delay to the launch, as the documents also state that the DfE would “like the T-level brand to be ready in regional marketing activity by March-April”.

The budget for 2019-20, for T-level brand and campaign implementation, is “anticipated to be up to £3 million, subject to DfE financial approval and Cabinet Office professional assurance”, the tender documents added.

“The budget for 2020-21 is subject to allocation of resources at the next comprehensive spending review.”

The first three T-levels – in digital, construction, and education and childcare – will be taught from September 2020.

Qualifications in health, healthcare science, science, onsite construction, building services engineering, digital support and services, and digital business services will then be taught from 2021.

By 2022, the government will introduce the final wave of T-levels – 15 in total.

A damning FE Commissioner report has revealed how Hadlow Group’s leaders concealed the truth of its financial position until the college needed bailing out, in a “corporate failure of leadership”.

Richard Atkins’ reports on Hadlow and West Kent and Ashford College were published on Thursday, the day after the High Court put Hadlow into education administration – the first time that has ever happened to a college.

The report reveals how a clique of leaders and governors ran the college on their own, having cut out executive team members and left board members and the government completely unaware of the “extremely serious financial situation” at the college.

Deputy principal Mark Lumsdon-Taylor declined to comment after the commissioner report said he and principal Paul Hannan made decisions themselves and reacted “strongly” when challenged by others.

Entwined government arrangements, where the college shared an audit, finance and governance committee, led to a few individuals having “significant sway” over all the organisations in the group, the report said.

In his report, the commissioner argues the board failed in its fiduciary duty and put the sustainability of the two colleges and its learners “at risk”.

“Loans” were the key evidence behind the commissioner’s team’s claim that there were “significant and long-standing” concerns about the reliability of data at the college.

This extended to the college’s grade one Ofsted rating from 2010, as the emerging issues with leadership, governance and management brings into question the board’s self-assessed grade of “outstanding” for the past three years.

Achievements in its 16-19 study programmes fell by 2.7 per cent between 2015-16 and 2017-18, from 86.1 per cent to 83.4 per cent.

An Ofsted spokesperson said the regulator was “aware” of the achievement rates for 16-19 provision at Hadlow College and would continue to keep the situation under review.

A spokesperson said Hadlow College and WKAC have already begun implementing the FE Commissioner’s recommendations, including those to recruit an interim chief financial officer and increase the financial expertise on the board, and the college is working on addressing its clerking, governance and auditing.

The two colleges have also separated their boards, each of which has a new chair, and a buyer for its £40 million subsidiary Betteshanger Park site is being sought, with the intention of finding one by July 31. 

This is after the commissioner challenged the college to justify the educational rationale for the college’s involvement in the business.

The commissioner did take the opportunity to refer to the dedication and commitment of the college’s staff, in what the spokesperson said “continues to be a challenging time for them”.

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ESFA failed to check accounts

The Hadlow Group’s financial crisis could have been caught sooner, had the ESFA checked the college’s self-assessed financial health score of “good” against its accounts and realised that the college had not included borrowings, such as a £3 million loan.

Every year, colleges have to send the ESFA financial data to calculate a financial health score.

The college sent ESFA data in which they claimed to have a “borrowing as a percentage of income” of 24.41 per cent.

This would have been given an automatic financial health score of 80 out of 100 by the ESFA, according to the college financial planning handbook.

But analysis by FE Week of the Hadlow College accounts found the borrowing percentage was in fact 45.35 per cent.

This would have scored 40 out of 100 and would explain a shift in the score from “good” to “inadequate”.

The commissioner’s report found “material differences”, particularly in relation to loans, between Hadlow’s annual accounts and its self-generated score of “good” in 2016-17.

The 2016-17 Hadlow College accounts show that, for example, in addition to long-term college bank loans, one of their subsidiary businesses, Grove Farm Park Limited, took out a substantial £3.3 million eight-year loan in 2015.

FE Week spoke to a financial adviser who works with many FE colleges, and who criticised the ESFA’s assurance role on this occasion.

“Accountants don’t audit the financial record. There is an expectation the ESFA will check the financial record they receive from the college against the statutory accounts.

“Clearly with Hadlow College, this did not happen, which brings into question what, if anything, the EFSA does to check the reliability of the data they receive.”

Skills minister Anne Milton has promised an independent review into processes for monitoring college finances, saying: “The DfE will be undertaking an independent review to check whether there is anything more we should do to make sure we know if things like this are going on at a much earlier stage.

“I have also asked officials to check whether we have proper procedures in place for whistleblowers.”

This comes after the FE Commissioner’s report made reference to concerns that had been raised during their visit about whistleblowing. 

Milton added that the government’s immediate focus is on minimising disruption to staff and learners.

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Who runs Hadlow College now?

A High Court judge has approved the appointment of three administrators – all of whom are from the same firm, BDO – to take over the running of Hadlow College.

The administrators’ objectives are to protect provision for existing learners, then seek the best outcome for creditors.

Education administrators do not have to have direct experience of the FE sector, but they can consult sector experts for advice.

The FE Commissioner has already said he will be making recommendations to them about the college’s future.

They are not obliged to consult any specific person about redundancies, though the college has stressed it envisages no changes to staffing as a result of the appointment of administrators.

The directors of a provider that had its government funding contracts terminated following an FE Week exposé only have to pay back £200,000 following its liquidation, despite owing nearly £3 million to creditors.

Furthermore, the amount, which is likely to go straight into the pockets of the insolvency practitioners to cover their fees, has been arrived at even though the directors’ new business is producing millions in profit.

In 2016, Paul and Joe Alekna switched the ownership of a successful provider they ran from one parent company – eResponse – to another, before transferring out £6 million, liquidating it and leaving learners and creditors on the hook for millions of pounds.

Meanwhile, the brothers continued to run another provider called Options 2 Workplace. But when FE Week exposed the situation, the Education and Skills Funding Agency cancelled its contract and eResponse – which changed its name to ER Training & Development Limited after the revelation – went insolvent in August that year.

A liquidator’s statement published in October 2018 shows the company owes £2,783,953 to creditors. The HMRC alone is owed £614,861.

FE Week has now learnt that a “settlement agreement” has been reached, which will see the directors pay £200,000 to the liquidation.

In January 2017 it was agreed that the liquidators would be paid a “set fee” of £125,743 for their work, according to the statement published in October.

It goes on to state that these fees have now been “exceeded”, and that the liquidator will “review the position as regards fees when the prospects of realising the remaining assets becomes clearer”.

The total fees being claimed by the insolvency practitioners are not known, but they are likely to be close to the £200,000 settlement – meaning there won’t be much left for creditors.

The insolvency practitioners and the directors were approached for comment but none provided a response at the time of going to press.

Since the insolvency of eResponse, the Aleknas have launched a recruitment firm called Workforce Solutions Group Ltd.

Its latest accounts show its turnover grew from £9.5 million in the five months from April 2016 to September 2016, to £26.75 million in the 2016-17 financial year.

The company made a gross profit that was just shy of £5 million in that year.

Workforce Solutions Group Ltd hasn’t gone without controversy since opening. In November FE Week revealed its links with a mysterious training provider called SCL Security Ltd, which has taken £16.5 million from Brooklands College over the past three years to deliver hundreds of level 3 IT apprenticeships, for mostly 16-to-18-year-olds, despite having fewer than 10 staff.

SCL Security, which has since been suspended from recruiting apprentices following the launch of an ESFA investigation into its operations, claims on the government’s Find Apprenticeship Training website to “operate training centres nationwide”, but its own website makes no reference to any training venues – the only address is for a head office in Kent.

However, a Google Maps search locates one of their training sites as “9 Church Road, Redditch” – the same building that Workforce Solutions Group operates out of.

Paul Alekna previously told FE Week that Workforce “specialises in temporary and permanent staffing, focusing in the manufacturing, logistics and transport, food manufacturing and office appointments sectors”, and insisted “that’s all we do”.

But he refused to deny that Workforce and SCL Security have a working relationship.

The investigation into SCL Security is ongoing. The principal and chief executive of Brooklands College, Gail Walker, has since resigned.

A significant apprenticeship provider plans to stop recruiting in the care sector after the government rejected calls to increase funding rates.

The “devastating” decision is being taken by Surrey-based Professional Training Solutions (PTS) Limited, which offers hundreds of apprenticeships every year, mostly in health and social care.

It was desperate for the Department for Education to double the funding bands for the level 2 adult care-worker and level 3 lead adult care-worker standards, which have recently been reviewed by the Institute for Apprenticeships, to £6,000.

As a business I cannot sustain these poorly funded standards

The provider’s managing director Jackie Denyer told FE Week she is working at a 9 per cent loss upon achievement, and a 30 per cent loss if an apprentice doesn’t achieve, at the current band of £3,000.

But despite a robust plea from the trailblazer group which developed the standards, the government decided to keep the rates as they are.

Officials have now been accused of undervaluing the care sector, with one other provider branding the decision a “disgrace”.

“As a business I cannot sustain these poorly funded standards,” Denyer said.

“I’m devastated because it is something I feel really passionate about. The care sector is low paid and made up predominantly of women, and I’m devastated that the government undervalues the people who underpin the whole economy.”

It comes at an awkward time for the IfA, which announced last week it will soon start evaluating the impact of its controversial funding band reviews, and promised to “take action” where reductions have made delivering apprentice training non-viable.

In recent months, major retailer Halfords has scrapped all of its level 2 provision and blamed the move on the IfA’s decision to cut the funding for the standards it delivered. Meanwhile, Scania, a leading manufacturer of heavy trucks and buses, has warned that its industry’s long-term skills strategy is threatened by the proposal to slash funding for the apprenticeships it delivers.

Jill Whittaker, the managing director of HIT Training, offers around 1,500 apprenticeships every year on the care standards that didn’t see their rate increased.

She told FE Week her provider will continue to deliver them despite also working at a loss as “we believe strongly in the value of the care sector to our society”. However, they will need to “reduce the amount of face to face time that our staff spend with apprentices to minimise losses on these programmes”.

“It says something shocking about the society we live in that its government places little value on the skills of people who care for our most vulnerable citizens,” Whittaker said.

“Only this week Matthew Hancock, now health minister but previously minister for skills, was talking about investing in skills in the care sector to ensure carers and healthcare staff are properly trained.

“If this investment is skimped on as part of the IfA’s driving down of costs then we will have apprenticeships based on the lowest common denominator, driven by price not quality. It’s a disgrace.”

Our dear loved ones need support but are denied decent funding for the sector that trains the staff needed

Home Counties Carers is one employer that currently works with PTS to offer care apprenticeships. Its head of care, Ingrid Clift, said the company will “really struggle to provide these” following the decision of the provider to stop delivering the training.

“We are working in a sector where there is never enough staff due to an ageing UK, low wages, bad working conditions, long hours and more,” she said.

“Yet the expectation is that good-quality, caring, effective, responsive, safe and well-led care is provided 24/7.

“Our dear loved ones need care and support but are denied decent funding for the sector that trains and develops the staff needed to care for these precious people.”

A spokesperson for the IfA insisted the government is “fully committed to supporting apprenticeships at all levels and across all industry routes”.

“The aim with all standards that go through the funding review process is to ensure the funding band we recommend provides for quality apprenticeship training and assessment,” he added.

“Each standard is considered on its own merits following the same rigorous processes. This was the case with the care standards.”

PTS will continue to deliver some apprenticeships in health and social care, including the early-years educator and the nursery assistant standards, as well as in other sectors, such as business administration, customer service and leadership and management.

The FE Commissioner reports into a college group that has been engulfed in a financial scandal have been published this morning.

It comes a day after one of them, Hadlow College, was placed into education administration by a High Court judge.

The sister college, West Kent and Ashford (WKAC), is not affected by the ruling, although it is also under a financial health notice of concern.

A letter from the skills minister Anne Milton was published alongside today’s reports and says both colleges are in a “perilous” position, and they have been placed in “supervised college status”.

Here are six key findings from the commissioner’s reports into the two colleges:

 

1. Both boards failed in their fiduciary duty, putting the ‘sustainability of both colleges and learners at risk’

Governance failures across the board put learners at risk, the commissioner found.

Several of the colleges’ functions are governed by joint-committees, with members drawn from both colleges’ boards.

The boards only found out shortly before the commissioner visited about the “extremely serious” financial situation the colleges and the other Hadlow Group organisations were in.

However, the report found this interconnectedness of membership led to a few individuals having “significant sway” over decisions affecting every organisation.

In addition to that, there was no qualified accountant on the board, and “insufficient” financial and accountancy skills.

The report pours scorn on the “peripatetic” clerk, Jonathan Allen, who works across both colleges’ boards and the group and college committees. This is on top of his work with a number of other large FE colleges and a MAT.

Allen was found to have “failed to address matters of good governance”, leading to “poor and inappropriate decision-making” and inappropriate governance.

 

2. How the Hadlow Group ran out of money

Although the two colleges have shared governance and leadership since Hadlow adopted WKAC from K College, they never merged and the overall body for the two colleges and subsidiary companies, the Hadlow Group, is not a legal entity.

The FE Commissioner’s area review in 2017 recommended Hadlow remain standalone, but this was later revised to recommend it merge with WKAC, which they refused to do.

A subsequent area review-related joint audit between the commissioner and the ESFA found the college had made exceptionally high claims for Additional Learner Support, which formed the basis of an ESFA audit in March 2018 and June 2018.

In March 2018, the commissioner met with the chairs of both colleges to confirm he would be recommending they merge. They accepted, with a target date of January 2019, and requested £24 million from the restructuring fund.

This request was rejected, partly due to the lack of transparency over intercompany transactions at the colleges.

Hadlow’s deputy principal Mark Lumsdon-Taylor then alerted the ESFA that both colleges would need exceptional financial support.

 

3. Senior post holders cut the executive teams out of decision-making

The executive team members that the FE Commissioner’s team met when they visited in February complained they had been cut out of key decision-making, and had only recently become aware of the financial issues plaguing the college.

The principal and deputy principal, Paul Hannan and Lumsdon-Taylor (both of whom have resigned) “regularly made decisions themselves outside of executive and any open discussion – and reacted strongly to questioning or challenge”.

Executive team members had not been given access to important financial information other than their own budgets; and had not been consulted on business partnerships, which had been made by senior post holders, and where curriculum and learner implications had not been properly considered.

One such partnership is the Rosemary Shrager Cookery School at WKAC, which the FE Commissioner’s report gives as an example of a partnership “crafted in isolation by senior leaders”.

 

4. There had been a ‘breakdown of trust’ between staff

Executive team members also displayed a lack of trust in senior leaders, and there was reports of “inappropriate behaviours” from “one key individual” had not been followed up.

Union representatives the commissioner’s team met also made a number of serious allegations, which, the report says, indicated a breakdown of trust has taken place.

 

5. Hadlow College could have been in intervention a lot sooner

Hadlow College evaded intervention by the ESFA for 2016/17, when it produced an automated financial health score of good, which did not take into account information about loans.

Had the loans been taken into account, the college would have been scored as ‘inadequate’, meaning they would have been in scope for an FE Commissioner intervention and an ESFA Notice of Concern, both of which did not happen until the end of 2019.

If an ‘inadequate’ had score been generated, governors would have been informed about the “extremely serious” financial situation much sooner.

The “significant and longstanding” concerns regarding the reliability of data could have impacted upon the college’s outcomes and their funding, and meant the report has to include an aside in the ‘outcomes’ section.

 

6. ‘Unlikely’ Hadlow’s grade one status could be justified now

Hadlow College was graded ‘outstanding’ in an inspection nine years ago, and has not been inspected since, apart from several curriculum and development visits – the last of which took place in 2012.

The college has self-graded as ‘outstanding’ for the past three years.

However, the report argues that given the issues that have emerged about the college’s leadership, management and governance, it is “unlikely” a grade one could be justified for those areas; which brings the college’s self-assessed grade one into question.

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HOW FE WEEK EXPOSED IT ALL – A FULL TIMELINE OF THE SAGA:

11 Feb: FE Week broke the news the FE Commissioner had intervened at the Hadlow Group, likely because of its finances; and deputy principal Mark Lumsdon-Taylor had resigned.

14 Feb: We later reported Hadlow College and WKAC principal Paul Hannan had gone on sick leave.

15 Feb: Graham Morley was announced as the interim principal of Hadlow College and WKAC. It was also reported the commissioner’s investigation had been triggered by the group’s application for restructuring funds to the Department for Education’s Transactions Unit.

18 Feb: Hannan and Lumsdon-Taylor were reported as having been suspended, and WKAC chair Paul Dubrow having stood down, with Hadlow chair Theresa Bruton taking over from Dubrow.

1 Mar: Hadlow Group colleges’ boards in “meltdown” as governors step down, the commissioner loans one of his deputies to stand-in as chief financial officer, and it was found Hadlow had not had an accountant on its board.

8 Mar: FE Week revealed the truth behind the investigation into Hadlow College, which told how Lumsdon-Taylor had been caught altering emails from the ESFA to justify claiming taxpayer funding, and the college had failed in a bid for £20 million from the ESFA. It was also revealed the college had failed to sell Betteshanger Park, an organisation within the Hadlow Group, for £4 million and had to spend £1.2 million on new foundations.

11 Mar: Theresa Bruton resigns, as did two other governors. The ESFA and commissioner’s team met the Friday before, ahead of a decision on whether the education secretary should continue to financially support the colleges, or let either of them go into administration.

15 Mar: FE Week exposes how the DfE bailed out WKAC was ordered by the High Court to pay £1 million that was owed to BAM Construction for the construction of a state-of-the-art teaching building in November.

18 Mar: Paul Hannan resigns.

19 Mar: Ex-Association of Colleges boss Martin Doel and mergers and acquisitions expert Andrew Baird are announced as the new chairs of WKAC and Hadlow, respectively.

26 Apr: ESFA takes control of investigation into Lumsdon-Taylor, who is also being evicted from his on-campus flat. But the college admits to paying for the first year of a Master’s degree course he is on at Manchester Metropolitan University.

15 May: Hadlow and WKAC are handed notices to improve by the government after being found to have ‘inadequate’ financial health.

17 May: FE Week broke the news Hadlow College had asked the education secretary, Damian Hinds, to apply to put it into education administration. A financial advisory firm was contracted to shop around for buyers of the group’s assets, including Hadlow and WKAC.

20 May: Hadlow College confirmed it was looking to sell Betteshanger Park, and intends to find a buyer by 31 July.

22 May: The High Court grants the education secretary’s application, and Hadlow College becomes the first FE body to go into education administration.

23 May: FE Commissioner publishes intervention reports into Hadlow and WKAC.

Hadlow College has been put into administration today, making it the first college to fall under the insolvency regime since it was introduced this year.

At the High Court today, the Chief Insolvency and Companies Court judge Nicholas Briggs granted an application from the education secretary Damian Hinds for an education administration order for the scandal-hit college.

Three insolvency practitioners from BDO – Danny Dartnaill, Graham Newton, and Matthew Tait – have now been appointed to run the college with the aim of achieving the best results for creditors and minimising the disruption to Hadlow’s 2,089 students.

It’s a landmark moment for the FE sector

A college spokesperson previously said it “envisages no changes to staffing” as a result of the education administration process.

The application by the education secretary was made in accordance with a request by the college, which has been in receipt of government bailouts to survive.

It has also been subject to intervention from the FE Commissioner, the report of which is expected this week and will likely cover the actions of the principal, deputy principal and several governors, all of whom left their roles at Hadlow and WKAC in disgrace following allegations of financial irregularities.

The court heard today that the college received £2.827 million of emergency funding from the Department for Education in February alone after it said it was out of cash when the leadership had quit.

More emergency funding will be offered by the DfE if it goes to supporting the administration of the college – to minimise disruption to students.

It was also revealed during the hearing that the college has received two letters threatening material financial claims: one from “Heritage Funding” and one from the National Lottery, which gave the college £1.3 million in June 2016 for the development of the Kent mining museum.

The National Lottery is trying to clawback £526,000.

Speaking to FE Week straight after the hearing, FE Commissioner Richard Atkins said: “It’s a landmark moment for the FE sector, one of the most significant moments since we were incorporated. Sadly in this case this is the right course of action.

“The reasons for that are the highly complex financial situation at Hadlow, and usually complex on the grand scale, the very poor governance and leadership of the college leading up to these events, and the fact that it is a protected scheme as the judge noted several times, means that the students and their experience and provision in that part of Kent will be protected.

“That is the part of the work that I and my team are focussed on, which is supporting the staff to ensure the students face the minimum disruption as a result of this particular course of action.

“I will be making recommendations to the administrators from BDO, who now have responsibility for running the college.”

Government guidance for further education bodies which become insolvent states the administrator must prepare a report on the conduct of all of the governors for the last three years for the business secretary.

The Insolvency Service will then review these reports and decide whether to seek to disqualify any of those governors; however, board members could also face jail sentences if it is found they have committed a statutory offence.

Education administration does not affect any of Hadlow College’s subsidiary businesses; such as Betteshanger Park, Grove Farm Park Ltd, Hadlow Rural Community School or the UK Sales Academy.

Nor will it affect Hadlow’s sister college, West Kent and Ashford College (WKAC), although that is also under a financial health notice of concern.

However, due to Hadlow’s financial state, it is looking to sell Betteshanger Park, which includes a business and country park as well as a multi-million-pound visitor centre and mining museum.

Meanwhile, financial advisors at BDO have been tasked with overseeing the potential sale or transfer of assets from the Hadlow Group – which includes Hadlow College and West Kent and Ashford College – to colleges in a 30-mile radius.

Following today’s hearing, a DfE spokesperson said: “Following a request from Hadlow College,  we can confirm that the college has today been placed into Education Administration.

“This is not a decision we have taken lightly, but it is a necessary step to maintain educational provision at Hadlow and to protect learners.

“The ESFA will continue to work closely with the FE Commissioner, the administrators and with Hadlow College to minimise disruption to staff or students, and to make sure we have excellent provision of FE in Kent.”

The names of the 30 providers to win contracts with the Greater London Authority to deliver its devolved adult education budget from August have finally been released.

Of the GLA’s total annual budget of £306 million, around £130 million is being procured over four years.

A tender for a slice of the funding got underway in October and the list of winners was endorsed last month, with the plan to feedback to bidders on April 24.

But owing to a “large number of queries” raised by applicants, this release was delayed.

Documents leaked to FE Week show that the names of the winners (see tables below) were released last night, but their contract values have not yet been revealed.

The GLA said in early April it received 202 bids for the total amount of £811 million. But the results letters sent to providers shows there were actually 336 submissions.

The contracts are worth £32.5 million for 2019/20, approximately £130 million over four years, and are split into two lots: 75 per cent is for one lot dedicated to training out-of-work Londoners; and 25 per cent will go towards a lot for training Londoners who are in-work, particularly those with low-pay or a low level of skills.

A total of 37 contracts, between 30 providers, have been awarded across both lots.

Among those providers chosen to deliver provision to out-of-work Londoners, three are rated ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted and eight have never been inspected.

For those chosen to deliver training for Londoners who are in-work, there is one grade three provider and six that have never been inspected.

One provider to win a contract in both lots is rated ‘outstanding’: East London Advanced Technology Training.

But another, London Skills & Development Network Limited, is rated ‘requires improvement’ overall and ‘inadequate’ for apprenticeships.

While 37 contracts have been procured, the remainder of the GLA’s adult education budget will be dished out to colleges and other institutions that currently receive funding via a grant from the ESFA.

The GLA has previously come in for criticism because of plans for the authority to topslice £3 million from the AEB every year to pay administrators to handle provider contracts.

The mayor was warned in September that a team of 72 administrators may not be enough to handle the fund when devolution kicks in, with procurement being a key issue.

The West Midlands was the first combined authority to release the winners from its AEB tender last week, as revealed by FE Week. They were closely followed by Liverpool City Region.

Tees Valley Combined Authority is understood to currently be in the final stages of funding awards and is expected to make a decision in the coming months, and the West of England Combined Authority is making decisions on allocations at its next committee meeting on June 14.

The procurement exercise being run Greater Manchester Combined Authority is still live, according to a spokesperson. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough’s is also still ongoing.

Lot 1	Ofsted grade
5 E Ltd	2
Big Creative Training Ltd	2
Back 2 Work Complete Training Ltd	early monitoring RP
ELATT (East London Advanced Technology Training)	1
Free to Learn Ltd	never inspected
Gloucestershire College	2
London Learning Consortium Community Interest Company	2
London Skills & Development Network	3
London Vocational College	never inspected
Martinex Ltd t/a Burleigh College	3
Maximus People Services	never inspected
Newham College of Further Education	2
United Colleges Group (City of Westminster College)	never inspected as merged body
Poplar HARCA	never inspected
Rapid Improvement Ltd	never inspected
Reed in Partnership	2
Strive Training	early monitoring SP
Simply One Stop Ltd t/a Learn Plus Us	3
Step Ahead Social Enterprise Community	never inspected
The London Hairdressing Apprenticeship Academy Ltd	2
Vocational Skills Solutions	never inspected
Waltham International College	never inspected

 

Lot 2	Ofsted grade
5 E Ltd	2
Dynamic Training UK Ltd	2
ELATT (East London Advanced Technology Training)	1
Free to Learn Ltd	never inspected
Go Train Ltd	never inspected
JGA Ltd t/a The JGA Group	2
London Vocational College	never inspected
London Borough of Lambeth	2
London Skills & Development Network	3
Maximus People Services	never inspected
Morley College Ltd	2
Pathway First Ltd	2
Poplar HARCA	never inspected
Rapid Improvement Ltd	never inspected
The Consultancy Home Counties Ltd t/a TCHC	2