High street giant Boots has been hit with a third ‘requires improvement’ rating in a row by Ofsted.

Inspectors who visited the employer provider in early October to monitor its apprenticeship provision criticised it for not learning lessons quickly enough from previous poor inspections in June 2015 and then again in June 2017.

However, the company has protested that the changes it has implemented were not given enough time to develop for the education watchdog to see their impact.

The quality of teaching, learning and assessment at Boots was singled out for a lack of progress, with Ofsted highlighting that assessors “do not have the necessary skills to support apprentices well with all aspects of their learning”.

Governors were equally criticised for not being “sufficiently knowledgeable about apprenticeships to challenge leaders and managers to deliver a high-quality programme”.

Staff “do not fully identify apprentices’ starting points nor use this information to ensure that their learning programme enables them to achieve to their potential”, while managers have “not developed an effective English and mathematics strategy”.

Boots, the UK’s “largest” pharmacy-led health and beauty retailer with around 2,500 stores, trains around 100 of its own apprentices every year.

A third ‘requires improvement’ rating in a row will raise questions as to why the provider has not been rated ‘inadequate’, considering it has continued to deliver poor training for an extended period of time despite Ofsted warnings.

However, yesterday’s report shows that while delivery is still not ‘good’, it is on its way to getting there.

“The management of the programme has been strengthened since the previous inspection, and quality compliance has been re-established,” inspectors noted.

“Since the previous inspection, leaders and managers have critically reviewed the programme and improved apprentices’ learning experience.”

They also said that the proportion of apprentices who achieve within the planned time has “greatly improved; a very high proportion of pharmacy apprentices achieve their qualification”.

Inspectors added that apprentices “benefit from very effective coaching in the workplace that helps them to develop vocational practical skills of a high standard” and “demonstrate highly professional behaviours and attitudes in the workplace”.

A Boots spokesperson said that while the company is “disappointed” with the ‘requires improvement’ grade, it is “pleased that Ofsted has recognised the distance travelled since the last inspection”.

“Over the last 12 months, Boots has reviewed its apprenticeship strategy, invested in its provision and implemented significant changes,” he told FE Week.

He added that for “many of the changes” that have been implemented it was “simply too early for Ofsted to see the impact and we are confident that we will be able to demonstrate this in the coming months”.

According to the Ofsted handbook for FE and skills, a provider judged to require improvement will “normally have a full re-inspection within 12 to 24 months of its previous inspection”.

It adds that these providers “will be subject to a monitoring visit before the full re-inspection”.

Schools with sixth forms have been exposed as failing to provide students the same level of careers advice as schools without sixth forms, with experts concerned competition for pupils amid stagnating funding is fuelling the situation.

Exclusive analysis for FE Week shows schools with sixth forms are 16 percentage points less likely to give students information about other further-education or higher-education providers.

They are also 20 percentage points less likely to offer personal careers guidance to pupils than those without sixth forms, the Careers & Enterprise Company analysis found.

It is not the first time schools with sixth forms have been called out for restricting careers information for their students – however, the new data is the most wide-ranging to date.

Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said the government must increase the funding rate for 16 to 18-year-old learners, which is frozen at £4,000 per pupil, so sixth forms aren’t desperate to keep their pupils.

He added that competition for pupils is “not a situation that is going to lend itself to impartial advice and guidance”.

Colleges report schools with sixth forms being “reluctant to allow them to address their students at open evenings”, Mr Watkin added.

The education select committee warned five years ago that schools with sixth forms were “putting their interests ahead of their pupils” by restricting their access to other education providers to fill their own post-16 places.

Now the CEC has collected data from 2,937 schools and 355 further-education institutions for its 2018 State of the Nation report to see if they meet the eight Gatsby benchmarks, which are markers of excellence in careers advice.

Analysis seen exclusively by FE Week reveals a higher proportion of schools without a sixth form met every benchmark than schools with a sixth form.

The difference was especially pronounced for the seventh benchmark, which measures students’ “encounters with further and higher education”.

Only 46 per cent of schools with a sixth form met this benchmark, compared with 62 per cent of schools without.

The gap was even wider for the eighth benchmark on “personal guidance” – only 53 per cent of schools with a sixth form met this, compared with 73 per cent of schools without.

It comes despite schools being required under the Technical and Further Education Act to follow the Baker clause, which states schools must allow training providers and colleges to offer year 8-to-13 pupils non-academic routes.

Further analysis on the seventh benchmark showed only 45 per cent of schools with a sixth form gave students “meaningful encounters with further-education colleges”, compared with 78 per cent of those without sixth forms.

However Kevin Gilmartin, post-16 and colleges specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, warned the benchmarks don’t always measure “informal advice” offered by schools with sixth forms.

The CEC report also found the best-performing areas for the Gatsby benchmarks were in deprived communities including Hull, the Isle of Wight and Norfolk and Suffolk coasts, possibly because they “prioritise careers support” to improve social mobility.

Overall, schools and colleges are achieving 2.13 of the eight Gatsby benchmarks compared with 1.87 last year. Meanwhile, the proportion of schools and colleges not achieving any benchmarks has fallen from 20.6 per cent to 18 per cent.

But only 21 schools and colleges are achieving all Gatsby benchmarks, added the CEC.

A troubled college group has appointed a seasoned troubleshooter as its interim principal.

Cornwall College Group lost its former head Raoul Humphreys earlier this month, when he stepped with immediate effect in an attempt to “expedite” a government bailout for the financially strained college.

Dr Elaine McMahon will now take over as interim principal and chief executive, having spent years working to alleviate the problems faced by various FE providers. 

Dr McMahon became interim principal at Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College in January 2014, at a time when auditors discovered an “unexpected deficit” of £4.1 million in the college’s accounts.

She then joined City College Coventry shortly after it received its second ‘inadequate’ rating by Ofsted in November 2015, and helped to improve it to a grade three by February last year.

And she became principal of Kensington and Chelsea College following the unexpected resignation of Mark Brickley and his controversial selling of the Wornington Road campus to make way for housing.

Ian Tunbridge, chair of the board at Cornwall College, said he was “delighted” to announce Dr McMahon’s appointment.

“Elaine has more than 30 years’ experience in further and higher education in the UK and the USA,” he said. “We are confident that Elaine will continue the hard work taking place in ensuring the positive future for the group and the learners and communities it serves.”

Mr Humphreys had worked at Cornwall College for 24 years, and took over as principal and chief executive in April 2017. He took the top job following the resignation of former principal Amarjit Basi in July 2016, who received a pay out of over £200,000 when he left his post despite the college being plagued by financial warnings from the government.

Cornwall College Group received £4.5 million emergency funding in 2016/17 and £3.5 million in 2017/18. It is still waiting to hear if it has been successful in applying for a restructuring grant, rumoured to be in the region of over £30 million.

The group is currently participating in a “confidential” review of Cornwall’s post 16-education alongside Truro and Penwith College and Cornwall Council.

A scandal involving one of the country’s biggest apprenticeship providers has engrossed the sector ever since the turn of this academic year – but details on exactly what caused it have been few and far between.

FE Week can now reveal just why Aspire Achieve Advance, better known as 3aaa, which had around 4,500 learners and 500 staff before it went bust last month, is being investigated by the government and the police.

Alleged manipulation of Individualised Learner Records, to artificially inflate achievement rates by a huge amount, as well as the misuse of employer incentive grants are at the heart of the investigations.

Inflated achievement rates

FE Week understands that Lee Marples (pictured above right), 3aaa’s commercial director and nephew to owner Peter Marples, is central to this part of the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s probe.

Evidence from a whistleblower shows how achievement rates were inflated by more than 20 percentage points.

FE Week understands Lee Marples, who boasted on 3aaa’s website to have “always had a thing for numbers”, would personally change ILR data late at night and at times from a remote login.

3aaa used a well-known commercial ILR “learning management system” for apprenticeships called Maytas, and this newspaper has seen data extracts showing hundreds of changes were made using a Lee Marples login.

FE Week has also had sight of internal 3aaa emails from Lee Marples which suggest the purpose of changing data was to inflate achievement rates.

In addition to ILR manipulation, 3aaa sales documents show a potential £700,000 ESFA clawback. It is understood that this relates to a range of apprenticeship and traineeship funding overclaims made via ILR submissions.

As revealed by FE Week in June, Ofsted almost gave the provider another ‘outstanding’ rating before pausing the inspection once inspectors heard the ESFA had an active investigation.

A spokesperson for the education watchdog told FE Week this week it is continuing to look into the provider.

“We are currently considering options for completing our inspection,” he said.

Lee Marples’ biography on the 3aaa website bragged about his “understanding of the funding mechanisms, rules and regulations”.

Lee Marples did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Kept £1.2m employer incentive payments

On the other side of the investigations is the alleged misuse of grants from an apprenticeship incentive scheme in which 3aaa held on to £1.2 million that was supposed to go to employers.

The programme, known as the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers (AGE), was run by the government from 2014 to July 2017 as a way of incentivising employers to take on 16- to 24-year-olds whom they would not otherwise be in a position to recruit.

Derbyshire Constabulary is aware of the allegations and has received an Action Fraud referral in relation to 3aaa

Eligible employers – those with fewer than 50 staff – qualified to receive £1,500 once an apprentice completed 13 weeks “in-learning” on their programme.

The skills funding agency would transfer the funds “to your training organisation once the 13-week qualification point has been met and correctly recorded on the Individualised Learner Record as submitted by the training organisation,” according to AGE guidance.

“Your training organisation must make arrangements to pay the funds to you within 30 days of receipt,” it added.

However, a 3aaa sales document that was being shown to potential buyers in October, and has been obtained by FE Week, reveals that the provider held on to £1.2 million for over a year after the scheme ended. The ESFA has investigated and now wants the money back.

“The outlook is impacted by potential ESFA clawbacks and deal fees ~£2.4 million (this is management’s view of the maximum including Age Grant £1.2 million, fees £0.5 million settlement £0.7 million),” the document said.

The £1.2 million for AGE and £700,000 clawback was listed in 3aaa’s cash-flow forecast for October (see image below right).

It meant that anyone who bought the provider, majority owned by co-founders Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson (pictured above left and middle respectively), would have to pay the amount back to the ESFA.

Derbyshire Constabulary is leading on the inquiry for Action Fraud, and confirmed it was investigating the allegation of the misuse of the employer incentive.

“Derbyshire Constabulary is aware of the allegations and has received an Action Fraud referral in relation to 3aaa and enquiries are ongoing,” a spokesperson said.

He added that a “criminal investigation has not begun as the Department for Education has not yet completed its work at 3aaa” and the police would “not comment on the specifics of enquiries – or be giving a running commentary on the state of the case”.

The DfE could not comment directly on the allegation as its investigation is still live, but offered this statement: “We have terminated our contracts with 3aaa. Our priority now is to find new training providers as quickly as possible for the affected learners.

“Following our investigation we have referred our findings to the police, through Action Fraud.

“We will look very carefully at what lessons can be learned as a result of this investigation.”

A spokesperson for the Official Receiver said: “The Official Receiver has a duty to investigate the cause of failure of the company and the conduct of all individuals involved in its management.

“If any misconduct is identified then the Official Receiver can refer matters to the relevant prosecuting authority, while also having the option of applying for a disqualification order for a period between two and 15 years.”

Mr Marples and Ms McEvoy-Robinson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

How 3aaa splashed the cash

Elton John concert and sports club sponsorship

As previously revealed by FE Week, 3aaa spent £1.6 million on sponsorship at sports clubs, of which£480,420 was with the Derbyshire Country Cricket club to include naming rights for the ground.

Confidential documents seen by FE Week also show 3aaa spent £69,000 for corporate hospitality at the 3aaa County Ground for an Elton John concert on June 4, 2017.

It is understood that in addition to the music show that evening, the cost included a “delicious three-course dinner and private bar”.

Flashy Tesla cars for 3aaa’s owners

Hire purchase agreements within the 3aaa sales documents show the company was paying monthly for 33 cars up until at least July 2018.

Two Model S Tesla’s in particular stand out, costing £3,600 per month at a total cost for the two cars by January 2020 of £288,000.

One of the Tesla’s was in the name of Patrick McEvoy, Di McEvoy-Robinson’s husband, and the other was in the name of Peter Marples.

Director loans and the mansions

3aaa received nearly all of its income from the Education and Skills Funding Agency. Its most recent accounts show that the company recorded a £2.5 million post-tax loss in the 18 months to January 2018.

Despite this, the same accounts show that its owners, Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson, had huge directors loans. As at January 31, 2018, Mr Marples had £2,745,859 outstanding. FE Week has seen documents that he then took a further director’s loan of £102,000 between February and July 2018.

MsMcEvoy Robinson had £1,280,509 outstanding at January 31, 2018, and again, took out a further £102,000 director’s loan between February and July 2018. At the end of 2015, both owners purchased multi-million pound properties.

Land registry documents show Ms McEvoy-Robinson purchased Horsley Hall in Derbyshire for £3 million (below), in December 2015.

Land registry documents show that Mr Marples purchased a house in Burton-on-Trent for £1,795,000 (below) in November 2015. It is understood the house was demolished, and FE Week has seen plans for an ultra- modern new build with out-door swimming pool, but it is believed this was never built.

Mr Marples also owned Morley Manor in Derbyshire (below). The mansion was put on the market for £1.6 million several weeks ago and it is unclear whether it has now been sold.

Mr Marples also owns a 9 bedroom mansion in Florida, which he rents (below). The rental site boasts it is the “largest property in Orlando”. It has been on the market for over a year and the current price tag is $2.75 million.

The 3aaa saga

The ESFA’s investigation was sparked earlier this year when a whistleblower approached the agency.

Owing to this, Ofsted declared its latest inspection of the provider, which was expected to result in another ‘outstanding’ rating, as incomplete in June.

It was in September when events really began to heat up. 3aaa’s co-owners Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson, who founded the provider together in 2008, resigned from the company claiming that they wanted to “take the opportunity to focus on our health and families”.

The training provider saw significant growth under their leadership. Direct ESFA funding to 3aaa increased from just £390,000 in 2012/13 to £3.6 million the following year. It rose again to £12.5 million in 2014/15 and to £21.7 million a year later.

Its total allocation, which was mostly for 16-to-18 apprenticeships in industries including IT, business administration and accountancy, stood at nearly £31 million by the end of 2017/18.

The provider was suspended from recruiting apprentices following its owners’ resignations, but FE Week revealed that senior employees were later “instructed” to tell its staff to not date any paperwork for “planned enrolments”.

This newspaper then uncovered a highly confidential previous government investigation report, code named ‘Project Vanilla’, into 3aaa which revealed it was given a £7 million contract increase in 2016 despite being found to have carried out dozens of funding and success rate “overclaims”.

Despite attempting to convince its employers and staff that the company was moving forward under “new management”, the provider put itself up for a quick sale in early October but later went bust when the ESFA terminated its skills contracts as a result of the findings of this year’s investigation.

Around 4,500 learners had to find new training providers and up to 500 jobs were lost.

The ESFA’s findings were then passed on to the police, through Action Fraud, and 3aaa has been placed into compulsory liquidation. Anthony Hannon is the Official Receiver handling the insolvency.

Only a tiny proportion of large employers’ apprenticeship cash was passed on to smaller employers in the first three months of the transfer scheme, the skills minister has revealed.

Since May this year levy-paying employers have been able to transfer up to 10 per cent of their funds to smaller employers in their supply chains.

Take-up was understood to have been low, and this has now been confirmed by Anne Milton.

In the three months from May to July “less than 1 per cent of levy funds in employer apprenticeship service accounts were used to fund apprenticeships in this way for non-levy paying employers,” she said in response to a parliamentary question.

Despite multiple enquiries, FE Week has only been able to find a handful of employers that have passed their levy funds along in this way

Last month the chancellor Philip Hammond announced an increase in the amount of cash that employers will be able to pass on from April 2019, up to 25 per cent.

Ms Milton said at the time that she hoped this would boost take-up “because then it’s a substantial proportion”.

Speaking to FE Week at the Conservative party conference in October, she admitted that “possibly yes” the 10 per cent wasn’t being passed on because it was “too small to make it worthwhile”.

“By January, I’d like to see some real progress. My challenge to employers is to go and transfer it,” she said.

“Employers say they really want to be able to help their supply chains. There are lots of enlightened ways you could use that transfer to grow apprenticeships – that’s what we want to see.”

A spokesperson for Health Education England, which supports apprenticeships in the NHS, said it was “providing support for employers seeking to transfer out and receive levy”.

“This includes transfers between trusts and primary-care employers such as GP practices, pharmacies and dental practices.”

However, she was unable to name any of the trusts involved.

Last month HEE wrote to all NHS trusts encouraging them to use or transfer their levy funds, after finding their annual £200 million pot was not being spent fast enough.

Mike Cherry, the Federation of Small Businesses’ national chairman, said the government should be “looking at solutions to encourage larger levy-paying firms to transfer their unspent funds” such as a matching service “where levy-paying businesses can locate smaller businesses to receive funding”.

Plans to allow levy payers to transfer funds to smaller employers in their supply chain, to support them to recruit apprentices, were first announced in October 2016.

When the policy first came into effect employers were limited to passing cash on to a single employer, although this restriction was subsequently lifted.

Following Mr Hammond’s announcement in October, a number of large employers, including Specsavers and the Co-op, voiced concerns that the increase to the transfer facility would have “little impact”.

“We are continuing to work with employers to build awareness on how businesses can use their apprenticeship-levy fund,” a Department for Education spokesperson said.

This included supporting them “to make sure they make best use of the levy transfer and their own levy funds”, she said.

FE Week reported last week that employers had used just 14 per cent of their apprenticeship levy funds in the 18 months since the charge was brought in.

Just £370 million of the £2.7 billion total balance of employers’ apprenticeship service accounts had been spent as of the end of September, a freedom of information request revealed.

Concern over thousands of apprentices without a regulator responsible for checking the quality of their training is being reviewed by the National Audit Office.

FE Week revealed last week that providers who deliver level 6 and 7 apprenticeships that have no prescribed HE qualification, such as a degree, and are not on the Office for Students’ “register”, go without any regulation.

The Department for Education has now confirmed the grey area exists and has committed to fixing it by expanding the OfS’ remit.

However, a solution might not be found for some time as the HE regulator will not decide how to assess providers not on its register until the huge task of signing off on current applications to its register is completed, which is likely to run into late 2019.

The NAO, led by comptroller and auditor general Sir Amyas Morse (pictured), has now weighed into the debacle and has promised to review the arrangements for oversight in its upcoming follow-up review of apprenticeships, due to be published in “early 2019”.

“We are aware of the concerns raised on the regulation of Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships,” said a spokesperson.

“As part of our study on the apprenticeships programme, we will review the arrangements for oversight, inspection and regulation of training provision at all levels of apprenticeship.”

The NAO’s review will focus on whether the apprenticeship reform programme is delivering value for money.

It comes after its 2016 report warned that without more robust risk planning the reforms risked seeing repeats of the frauds that plagued failed Individual Learning Accounts.

The failure of this scheme – which was scrapped in 2001 after abuse by unscrupulous providers led to a reported £67 million fraud – was blamed on poor planning and risk management by the government.

The NAO has raised concerns that lessons had not been learned – as it warned the DfE had not done enough to identify how providers, employers and assessment bodies might react to the apprenticeship reforms, raising the risk of “market abuse”.

The previous NAO report has a section on apprenticeship oversight, but does not mention regulation for level 6 and 7 degree or non-degree programmes.

FE Week analysis shows there are 15 approved standards at higher levels with no degree element, which have had a combined total of 4,443 starts on them since 2016/17.

One of the standards, the level 7 accountancy and taxation professional, had over 3,500 starts in 2017/18 alone.

Any HE provider that is delivering these standards is still subject to OfS regulation if they are on its register, so some of the starts in question would have been assessed.

The issue of no oversight lies with providers, such as Kent County Council, which deliver the high-level apprenticeships but are not on the OfS register and therefore not subject to their regulation.