The co-founder of Aspire Achieve Advance has resigned from his position as chair of an academy trust, after the government referred his giant training provider to the police.
FE Week revealed last night that Peter Marples had the backing of the Spencer Academies Trust, even though 3aaa was put into administration after the Education and Skills Funding Agency withdrew its funding following a second government investigation.
The findings from that inquiry were then passed on to the police.
But today, Mr Marples (pictured) handed in his resignation to the trust, and its directors have accepted.
“The directors of The Spencer Academies Trust have accepted the resignation of Peter Marples as a director and chairman of the board,” a spokesperson said.
“The Spencer Academies Trust is an education charity constituted for the purposes of advancing the opportunity of children and young people across the East Midlands.
“Vice chair Donna Kinderman will assume Mr Marples’ board responsibilities in the role of interim chair. Mrs Kinderman is a safeguarding and child development practitioner with over twenty years’ experience of working with local schools.
“We will not be commenting further.”
Mr Marples is a multi-millionaire businessman who co-founded 3aaa in 2008. He joined the Spencer Academies Trust in December 2015 as a trustee and became its chair in the 2016/17 academic year.
The trust currently comprises of 17 schools and is taking on one more next month following a merger with the Trent Academies Group.
The enlarged group will teach 17,000 students across Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.
FE Week has made multiple attempts to contact Mr Marples but has not responded. He has taken down his LinkedIn and Facebook page in the last couple of days.
He resigned from his position at 3aaa last month in the midst of a second ESFA investigation, but continued to be its joint majority shareholder with co-founder Di McEvoy-Robinson.
More than 500 jobs and the future of 4,500 apprentices are at risk because 3aaa went bust.
This was the second government investigation into 3aaa. The first, carried out in 2016 by auditing firm KPMG, found dozens of success rate “overclaims”.
The apprenticeship provider was given over £31 million in government funding last year.
Ofsted is on the look out to recruit 10 FE experts as inspectors while it ramps up its workforce to carry out early monitoring visits of every new apprenticeship provider.
The inspectorate has been given £5.4 million in government funding to help with the mammoth task of carrying out visits at as many as 1,200 providers.
In an exclusive interview with FE Week last month, Paul Joyce, Ofsted’s deputy director for FE Skills, said it had received all the money it asked for but would not be drawn on how many extra inspectors the money might fund.
That the inspectorate is now advertising for so many experienced FE inspectors is likely to be the first sign of this funding being spent. The advertised jobs come with an annual salary of £66,705, rising to £71,705 after probation.
The job description states that Ofsted is looking for “experienced professionals with the highest levels of skill”.
Applicants are expected to have a minimum of five years’ leadership experience at a senior level in FE, as well as a “secure, deep and broad knowledge” of the sector’s issues and changes. Expertise in apprenticeships was not explicitly stated as a requirement.
A spokesperson for Ofsted said it was recruiting new inspectors to cover “the whole range of inspections” under the FE remit.
“An important part of this will include monitoring visits and inspections of new apprenticeship providers, but not at all exclusively.”
She added: “As the job advert makes clear, inspectors are expected to have relevant experience of the range of provision they inspect. Experience of apprenticeship training is obviously one relevant area.”
The Education and Skills Funding Agency confirmed in August that any apprenticeship provider which Ofsted deems to have made insufficient progress in one or more themes under review would be stopped from taking on new apprentices.
These restrictions will stay in place until the provider has received a full inspection and been awarded at least a grade three for its apprenticeship provision. Full inspections for providers who have received an ‘insufficient’ judgement will now take place within six to 12 months.
Ofsted is rating adult education in their monitoring visits of new apprenticeship providers – but the government doesn’t know if they’ll ban a provider if they’re making ‘insufficient progress’ in that theme alone.
In August the Education and Skills Funding Agency confirmed that any poor-performing provider with the rating in at least one of the themes under review will be barred from taking on any new apprentices – either directly or through a subcontracting arrangement.
These restrictions, applied unless there is an “exceptional extenuating circumstance”, will remain in place until the provider has received a full inspection and been awarded at least a grade three for its apprenticeship provision.
The vast majority of the monitoring visits only judge new providers on three fields – leadership of apprenticeship provision, apprenticeship training quality and safeguarding.
But a fourth category has appeared in some reports – for adult education.
Ofsted’s FE and skills handbook has a section dedicated to these early monitoring visits for new apprenticeship providers and states: “Should the provider have other types of provision (e.g. 16 to 19 study programme provision or funding for learners with high needs) that type of provision will be covered each with a separate theme.”
Other newly funded provision, such as advanced learner loans, will also be in scope for inspection.
The DfE’s rules about banning providers who are rated ‘insufficient’ in the early monitoring visit reports explicitly say it will suspend them from taking on “apprentices” but doesn’t mention what ramifications there are for adult learning, study programmes, or loans provision.
FE Week asked the department if it would ban an apprenticeship provider from taking on new learners if they were making insufficient progress just for their loans or adult education, but it couldn’t provide a clear answer.
“When an adult learning provider is found to be providing inadequate training or not making the expected progress we will not hesitate to take appropriate action,” a spokesperson said.
“This includes requiring that a provider put together a plan that will improve the quality of the education or training within a reasonable timeframe.”
Mark Dawe, boss of the AELP, criticised the government’s lack of clarity.
“It doesn’t look like as if the government’s policy has been fully thought through,” he told FE Week.
“Our view is that if a provider has made insufficient progress in adult education, then a stop on new adult education starts may be appropriate but not across all its programmes.”
There have been four early monitoring visit reports published by Ofsted so far that have judged adult education.
Northwest Education and Training Limited and Sccu Ltd both received ‘reasonable progress’ judgments in all themes, and N A College Trust received ‘significant progress’ ratings in two themes and ‘reasonable’ in the other two – including adult education.
The Education and Skills Partnership Limited was found to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in two themes, but ‘reasonable’ in the other two, again including for adult education.
As revealed by FE Week last month, the government has coughed up the full £5.4 million Ofsted requested to visit all new apprenticeship providers as it cracks down on poor provision continues.
Potentially as many as 1,200 providers could now be in scope for a two-day monitoring visit.
FE Week understands that around 30 of those have newly funded adult education funding, which will be in scope for inspection.
Paul Wakeling, interim principal, Havering College
Start date: October 1 2018
Previous job: Principal and chief executive, Havering Sixth Form College (he remains in post)
Interesting fact: Paul’s hobby is long distance walking: when he was 14, he convinced his parents to let him disappear for days, then weeks on end. It’s been his thing ever since.
Craig Tupling, deputy chief executive, Bradford College
Start date: October 29 2018
Previous job: Assistant principal, quality, student experience and HE, Kirklees College
Interesting fact: Craig is passionate about volunteering: he’s been a governor in secondary schools in Halifax and Huddersfield, and was as a Games Maker at the London 2012 Olympics
Emma Barrett-Peel, head of apprenticeships, Working Links
Start date: September 2018
Previous job: Director of vocational training, Catch-22
Interesting fact: As a teenager, Emma spent five years in the air cadets, where she flew a two-seater plane twice, and learnt to strip down and reassemble different types of gun.
Stewart Foster, managing director, NCFE Awarding
Start date: October 1 2018
Previous job: Director of quality assurance, NCFE
Interesting fact: A car accident at the age of 18 curtailed Stewart’s engineering apprenticeship at Rolls Royce, but did lead to his current career as he switched to the firm’s training department.
Ben Robinson, campus principal, Stockton Riverside College Bede Sixth Form
Start date: August 2018
Previous job: Director of student guidance and support, Hartlepool Sixth Form College
Interesting fact: Ben has been a keen golfer since he was a child. In 1989 he was in the Guinness Book of Records for being the youngest person in Britain to score a hole in one in a competition.
If you want to let us know of any new faces at the top of your college, training provider or awarding organisation please let us know by emailing news@feweek.co.uk
Crisis-hit Aspire Achieve Advance has gone into administration – putting 500 jobs and the future of 4,500 apprentices at risk, FE Week can reveal.
The company, better known as 3aaa and one of the biggest apprenticeship providers in the country, has come to the end of its sale process and multiple bids were made.
However, it is understood that a suitable deal could not be reached, and as a result, 3aaa has now gone into administration.
The training provider, which made a £2.5 million post-tax loss in the 18 months to January 2018 and was loaned £5.5 million by Beechbrook Capital in April this year, is under investigation by the ESFA for a second time following claims of inflated success rates.
Following administration, the ESFA will become responsible for 3aaa’s 4,500 learners and tasked with finding them new training providers.
Around 500 jobs could be lost.
“The directors of 3aaa (the Company) have today requested receivership to administer the business arrangements of the Company with immediate effect,” a statement from the company said.
“This follows a meeting with the ESFA on Wednesday 10th October at which the ESFA confirmed there would be no further progress payments for learners on programme. This immediately removes the ability for the company to continue to operate.”
It continued: “This affects the employees, apprentices and clients with whom 3aaa has a relationship and to whom each employer of the apprentice must now determine with whom they wish the apprentice learning should take place in the future.
“The new management had hoped that the ESFA would have allowed it to have transferred the business to another qualified operator or in the worst case arranged an orderly closure of the business. The ESFA has opted not to allow that to happen so, in these extreme circumstances, the directors have no option but to take this course following this ESFA decision.”
The ESFA said: “In conjunction with recent investigations, we have issued notices to terminate contracts with 3aaa. The notices will bring the contracts to an end in a three month period, in January 2019.
“During the notice period, the suspension on apprenticeship enrolments remains in place. Our investigations will continue until all concerns have been addressed.
“Our priority is to protect the apprentices and to ensure minimum disruption to their learning. We will source high quality alternative provision as quickly as possible and support apprentices and employers to enable them to continue with their apprenticeship programme. We will write to all apprentices and employers to explain the next steps.”
Concerned apprentices, parents, or employers can contact the ESFA on a dedicated e-mail: 3.AAA@education.gov.uk.
In June FE Week revealed that the training provider’s latest Ofsted inspection, which was expected to result in another ‘outstanding’ rating, had been declared “incomplete” following intervention from the ESFA after claims were made by a whistleblower.
The agency subsequently launched an investigation into the provider regarding its achievement rates.
This is the second investigation being carried out by the ESFA into 3aaa. The first, carried out in 2016 by auditing firm KPMG, found dozens of success rate “overclaims”.
In July FE Week revealed that an independent auditor had been called in by the Department for Education to investigate its own funding agency over their contract management of 3aaa.
In conjunction with recent investigations, we have issued notices to terminate contracts with 3aaa
3aaa’s co-founders, Peter Marples and Di McEvoy-Robinson, resigned from the company last month.
It was subsequently suspended from recruiting apprentices but “instructed” staff to not date any paperwork for “planned enrolments”.
Despite Ofsted still not having wrapped up its inspection of 3aaa, the provider claimed in its sales pitch to potential bidders that it was rated ‘outstanding’ in all fields judged in May 2018.
Earlier this week, the boss of 3aaa contacted the apprenticeship giant’s clients to “reassure” them that he’s taking the business forward as “new management”. He added that as a “precautionary measure and to do all we can to protect learners and staff against any residual risk” the company is “having very early stage and initial conversations with other reputable providers”.
3aaa received over £31 million in government funding last year and had the largest allocation for non-levy apprenticeships – standing at nearly £22 million.
The provider is also the biggest provider of 16-18 apprenticeships. In 2016/17 it had 1,720 16-18s leave or finish their apprenticeships, and 810 19-23s, according to national achievement rate data.
An FE Week investigation last week found that Ofsted delayed inspecting the beleaguered provider for years despite its achievement rates plummeting when apprentice numbers nearly quadrupled and severe safeguarding concerns were brought forward by a whistleblower.
The chair of the influential Public Accounts Committee, Meg Hillier, criticised the serious failing by the education watchdog and expressed fear that the situation mirrors the Learndirect scandal.
Monday is the start of Colleges Week! This is a chance to celebrate the role colleges play in the country’s education system and the fantastic work that they do.
Colleges touch the lives of a huge cross-section of our communities – people of all ages, from a wide variety of backgrounds with exceptional and special needs. They guide young people through qualifications, mentor and support them, give them the skills they need for the next step in their lives. They help build the skills of the workforce for the jobs of today and the cutting-edge jobs of the future.
I will take every opportunity to always highlight the fantastic work that you do
I have met so many students and teachers from our colleges. Among them are apprentices showing me their plastering skills; people learning English as a second language; food-science-degree apprentices; agriculture students in the lambing season; engineering apprentices; and digital marketing students, to name but a few. And they all have one thing in common: their passion, enthusiasm and commitment to what they are doing. That attitude to their study comes directly from the teachers and support staff. Colleges are drivers for change, drivers of social mobility – building the confidence of the learners in their care. They are simply the best.
Colleges educate and train over two million people a year – from basic skills to higher-education courses. Just over half a million adults took English courses and a similar number took maths. Most of the higher-level technical education is taught in colleges, and their role is now changing with the teaching of the first T-levels in 2020. I want colleges to be agile, dynamic educators and trainers, who are able to respond to the rapidly changing world of work we now face.
Once fully rolled out, we will be spending an additional £500 million each year on T-levels, and we have recently announced a further £38 million to help the first T-level providers invest in high-quality equipment and facilities. We are supporting the Taking Teaching Further programme, which will add capacity to the existing brilliant FE workforce and give industry experts a chance to join this workforce and pass on their skills to the next generation.
Helping people from some of the most deprived areas pass exams and gain qualifications takes time and commitment. Giving people with special needs a chance to acquire skills takes particular expertise. Giving someone maybe a second, third or even fourth chance requires dedication. I know what colleges can do and I am very aware of the funding pressures they face. My message today to those leading and working in colleges is that I will take every opportunity to always highlight the fantastic work that you do – in the words of this week’s slogan, I will “Love Our Colleges”.
Nearly three years ago the government pledged to create five national colleges that would train more than 20,000 students between them by 2020. Over the weekend one of these, the National College for High Speed Rail, hit the headlines after it emerged it had just 93 learners last year. That prompted FE Week to take a closer look at all the national colleges – uncovering inadequate financial health, special treatment and below-target learner numbers.
Almost a year ago to the day, the National College for High Speed Rail (NCHSR) was opened with great fanfare.
Justine Greening, then education secretary, was all smiles as she cut the ribbon at the college’s Doncaster campus, declaring it a “win-win for everyone”.
But behind the positive front, a funding battle was raging that threatened to derail the college’s very future – and that is still affecting it now.
Although extreme, this isn’t the only case of a national college struggling.
But, as FE Week discovered, none of them will suffer the usual penalties for weak financial performance due to their “unique position” – even though most are in debt and under-recruiting.
Plans for the five colleges were first confirmed in the 2015 spending review, which said they would “train an estimated 21,000 students by 2020 in industries central to the productivity agenda such as digital and high-speed rail”.
The following May, the former Department for Business, Innovation and Skills announced £80 million of government investment for the colleges, of which half would go to the NCHSR.
Two colleges, the National College for Digital Skills, known as Ada, based in London, and the National College Creative Industries (NCCI), in Essex, both opened their doors in 2016/17.
NCHSR, which has campuses in Birmingham and Doncaster, started in 2017/18, as did the National College for Nuclear, based in two hubs, at Bridgwater and Taunton College and Lakes College.
A fifth, the National College for Onshore Oil and Gas, was supposed to open in the same year, but has yet to get off the ground.
NCCI was in “inadequate” financial health in 2016/17, according to its financial statements.
Minutes from a July board meeting at Ada revealed that it was projected to fall to this financial rating in the current academic year, although this projection was later revised, a spokesperson said.
The minutes acknowledged that “under normal circumstances an ‘inadequate’ financial health rating would result in intervention measures in the sector but it was acknowledged that the national colleges were in a unique position during start-up”.
“This was recognised nationally and had been confirmed by Department for Education officials,” they said.
Furthermore, at least three are in receipt of “working capital loan” funding, described by one college as cash to “ensure liquidity and provide short-term funding during the early years of the college’s operations until learner volumes increase”.
Ada has received at least £420,000, according to its 2016/17 financial statements: £140,000 that year, with a further £280,000 expected in 2017/18 – even though its financial health was “satisfactory”.
NCCI’s accounts for the same year show it to have received £650,000 in working-capital-loan funding in July 2017, while the NCSHR received a massive £4.7 million in 2016/17.
FE Week asked the DfE to confirm this special treatment for the national colleges.
In response, a spokesperson said it was “only right that we work with them during their set-up phase while they establish themselves and work towards financial stability”.
All the colleges were offered working-capital loans “to assist in their start-up costs”, she said.
National College for High Speed Rail
Despite receiving more than £55 million in capital funding from BIS, local authorities and industry, the NCHSR had just 93 students enrolled in its first year, according to board minutes.
This was less than half the 226 learners it had forecast to have on board, it was acknowledged in its 2016/17 financial statements.
Nonetheless, it still set itself an ambitious target of 639 learners for this September, according to minutes from a board meeting in May: so ambitious that it prompted a team from the Education and Skills Funding Agency to remark that “they had never seen such growth”.
The driver behind this rapid expansion in learner numbers was simple: money.
The college was hit hard by the Institute for Apprenticeships’ decision in 2017 to award the level-four high-speed rail and infrastructure standard a funding cap of £21,000, rather than £27,000 as anticipated and budgeted for by the college.
The college was hit hard by the Institute for Apprenticeships’ funding cap
The standard has seven pathways and represents half of the college’s current provision.
Minutes from an October 2017 board meeting, just days after Ms Greening’s visit, reveal that the college “would not be viable” at that level of funding, “as for every £1,000 below the level of the higher band it would lose £1 million over five years”.
“The college’s costs had been built based on the quality of its provision that could not be delivered if the funding band was £21,000,” the minutes said.
Despite attempting to enlist the support of Ms Greening to fight their cause, and an appeal by the employer group that developed the standard, the IfA’s decision stood.
According to the college’s 2016/17 financial statements, the impact of this on the college’s income “will be significant over the medium to long term”.
College leaders met with officials from the Department for Education, Department for Transport and HS2 in December to discuss the college’s financial situation, according to board minutes from that month.
“It was clear the departments will not let the college fail, and that they will develop a package to support it,” the minutes said.
Earlier this year the college was forced to renegotiate repayments on a loan it had taken out from HS2, worth millions.
Minutes from a May board meeting show the college to be in discussions with the DfE about further support, although this was contingent on the college “being seen to help itself”.
This included a suggestion that the college “broaden its scope” as it was “underselling itself by restricting its remit to high-speed rail”.
Of the 14 courses the college currently offers, nine are focused on high-speed rail. The remainder are in management or rail engineering, and it has plans to introduce five new courses – including one in train driving.
“Recognising the transferability of the skills gained at the college and how they can be applied in transport and infrastructure is key to matching the aspirations of our learners and businesses that come to the college, and is a focus of our ongoing discussions with DfE and our wider network of industry partners,” said Martin Owen, the college’s commercial finance director.
“We are proud of what we have achieved in launching the world’s first dedicated high-speed rail college,” he added.
No further funding support for the college has been agreed at this time, confirmed the DfE.
An IfA spokesperson said: “The Institute strives to make recommendations that support high-quality training whilst delivering value for money for employers and government.”
National College for Digital Skills
Ada received £18.2 million from the London local-enterprise partnership’s further education capital fund, and £13.4 million from the government, and had 56 students when it opened in September 2016.
Those numbers are now up to 130 learners in its sixth form, and 125 apprentices working for companies including Google, Siemens and Deloitte, a spokesperson told FE Week.
She admitted that its enrolment was lower than forecast, but said the college had been forced to “constrain our numbers” as the larger premises it was due to move into this year were not yet ready.
The college is also under considerable financial strain.
Minutes from meetings in February and May reveal concerns from board members about its reliance on fundraising to cover core costs, with question raised over “whether Ada will ever break even purely with government funding”.
Robert Halfon at the launch of Ada in October 2016
Its 2016/17 financial statements show that it received £140,000 in working-capital-loan funding from the Department for Education that year, with a further £280,000 expected in 2017/18 – although its financial health was “satisfactory”.
The cash was to “ensure liquidity and provide short-term funding during the early years of the college’s operations until learner volumes increase”, according to the accounts.
Board minutes from February indicate that the college was in discussions with the DfE about “whether we can delay the repayments” on this loan.
An Ada spokesperson said the college was on track to break even in 2018/19, and go into surplus next year.
“Breaking even within three years of operation exceeds expectations,” she said.
Fundraising was essential to enable the college to “go beyond what is possible in many education environments”, she added, and referred to “the high levels of industry support” it received.
She said the college was “doing really well. We have had some fantastic successes and are incredibly proud of what we’re achieving here”.
National College Creative Industries
The NCCI was allocated £5.5 million from the public purse and opened at the same time as Ada with just 16 students.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it had already fallen into ‘‘inadequate” fiscal health in 2016/17, according to its financial statements.
They show it had an operating deficit of £165,020 for the year, and were forecasting further deficits over the following three years.
The college had agreed a £650,000 working-capital loan with the DfE in July 2017, and a further £263,000 from Creative and Cultural Skills, the sector skills council.
But as it had revised down its initial student forecasts “because of the risks associated with the original recruitment profile”, the college was therefore “seeking to renegotiate the repayment terms”.
An NCCI spokesperson said that the college’s original plans had been “out of kilter” with the needs of industry and the “start-up nature” of the college.
Its revised plans “more closely align to the needs of the industry for higher level work-based training” and had led to its level-two classroom-based provision being scrapped, she said.
It currently has 27 learners and 59 apprentices enrolled – although the spokesperson insisted it was “confident it was on track to recruit over 450” students altogether in 2018/19.
Achieving this would be represent a “four-fold increase on the previous year”, she said.
National College for Nuclear
The National College for Nuclear has a different set-up from the other existing national colleges, in that it isn’t a college in its own right.
Instead, it operates out of two hubs: its northern hub, based at Lakes College in Cumbria, and its southern hub, based at Bridgwater and Taunton College in Somerset, through which the college’s learners and apprentices are enrolled.
The DfE provided £15 million to cover the cost of new buildings and equipment, while the Heart of the South West local-enterprise partnership contributed a further £3 million to the southern hub, and Bridgwater and Taunton put in £4.5 million.
It opened in September 2017, when it had 111 learners enrolled.
A further 357 learners have started courses across the two hubs in 2018/19, bringing the total to 468.
A spokesperson said the college was “pleased with our start-up progress in a challenging environment for education and skills”.
National College for Onshore Oil and Gas
The National College for Onshore Oil and Gas (NCOOG) was allocated £5.6 million in 2016 by BIS, along with equipment donations from industry.
It was set to open in September 2017, but has yet to materialise.
Martin York, the college’s managing director, said the onshore oil and gas industry – otherwise known as fracking – was in development and as yet was still “identifying its future workforce requirements”.
“NCOOG will launch and develop in partnership with industry,” he said.
“When NCOOG is confident of the industry’s requirements, delivery of the colleges funding and support package will be progressed; until we reach this stage I am pleased to confirm that NCOOG does not require or is seeking any third-party funding.”
A DfE spokesperson confirmed that development of the college had been paused.
It’s been a mostly positive week for FE and skills, with one provider receiving a grade two on its first ever full inspection and five early monitoring visit reports returning ‘reasonable’ grades.
The only blemishes on this otherwise glowing picture are two apprenticeship providers found to be making ‘insufficient’ progress.
Leaders at independent learning provider 1st Care Training, based in King’s Lynn, have “worked well to establish a culture of ambition for all learners” according to a report published October 11 and based on an inspection a month earlier.
Teachers at the provider, which offers apprenticeships and loans-funded provision for the care sector, provide “good individual training” to learners which meets their “specific needs and supports their workplace and employment ambitions well”.
Achievement rates were “extremely high”, with all but one learner completing their courses on time in 2017/18.
Learners make “good progress” at work, and many “reach management positions or gain additional responsibilities” as a result of their training.
Four independent providers and one employer provider have had apprenticeship early monitoring visit reports published this week that found them to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in all areas.
These were Train Together, in Leicester; Seymour Davies Ltd, in Cambridgeshire; Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust; Cheshire-based Partnership Training Limited; and Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.
In contrast, Kashmir Youth Project, in Rochdale, was found to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in two out of three areas under review, in a report published October 5 and based on a visit in early September.
The provider, which began as a voluntary and community organisation in 1979, first started delivering apprenticeship training in 2005 as a subcontractor before gaining a place on the register of apprenticeship training providers in May 2017.
Governors, leaders and managers “have a clear focus and vision for the future” but “have not focused sufficiently on the delivery of the new apprenticeship contract”, the report said.
They have “identified several weaknesses” but “have not acted quickly enough to eliminate them”.
Managers have not ensured that all “apprentices receive their full entitlement to off-the-job training time during working hours”.
“Apprentices do not develop substantial new knowledge, skills and behaviour,” the report said.
Trainers and tutors were also criticised for failing to “check the progress and understanding of all apprentices” and for giving “insufficient” feedback to apprentices.
As previously reported by FE Week, Cumbria-based NC Training Limited was found to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in a report published October 11 and based on a visit in mid-September.
Both NC Training and Kashmir Youth Project face being barred from taking on new apprentices until they’ve been rated at least ‘requires improvement’ for their apprenticeship provision, following a full inspection.
This should take place within 12 months of the monitoring visit.
The Department for Education has referred Aspire Achieve Advance to the police following its investigation into the crisis-hit provider.
The company, known as 3aaa, was put into administration today following a second government investigation regarding claims about inflated achievement rates.
This newspaper can now reveal that the DfE has referred their findings to the police via Action Fraud – the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime.
The case has now been passed onto Derbyshire Constabulary who will lead on enquiries.
“We have terminated our contracts with 3aaa. Our priority now is to find new training providers as quickly as possible for the affected learners,” a spokesperson for the DfE said.
“We have put a specialist team in place to identify new providers and help learners with as little disruption as possible. 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 Derbyshire Constabulary spokesperson said: “Derbyshire Constabulary has received a referral from Action Fraud in relation to 3AAA and enquiries are ongoing.”
The first ESFA investigation into 3aaa, carried out in 2016 by auditing firm KPMG, found dozens of success rate “overclaims”. Despite the findings, the DfE awarded the provider £7 million in growth that year.
3aaa received over £31 million in government funding last year and had the largest allocation for non-levy apprenticeships – standing at nearly £22 million.
