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.
The Department for Education has wasted more than £2.3 million over the last five years on studio schools, UTCs and post-16 free schools that never even opened.
Figures obtained by FE Week’s sister paper FE Week reveal a staggering £2,331,888 has been written off for nine planned providers cancelled between May 2013 and January 2018.
The biggest loss was from the Powerlist Post 16 Leadership College, which was expected to open in London in September 2015 but was scrapped that month instead.
A joint venture between The Powerlist Foundation and the Aspirations Academy Trust, the cancelled college cost the DfE more than £467,000, including over £200,000 in capital losses.
Four university technical colleges also make the list, costing over £1 million between them.
Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “The way taxpayers’ money is awarded to education projects should be transparent and above board, yet these examples raise questions about the level of scrutiny being applied to applications when the recipient schools are well-connected within government circles.”
But Mark Lehain interim director of the New Schools Network, a charity which supports the setup of free schools said establishing a school is “a big challenge”, and it is “only right” the DfE cancels the “small proportion” of cases that don’t develop as planned.
Burton and South Derbyshire UTC, developed in partnership with Burton and South Derbyshire College, was given over £8 million of government funding before being scrapped in May 2016.
This year the abandoned campus became a sixth form centre for the de Ferrers academy trust, but the DfE still accrued a loss of over £400,000 on the project.
UTC Guildford was supposed to open this year, but was scrapped in March 2017 at a cost of £408,000. Its trustees, which included Royal Holloway University and Surrey County Council, said at the time the DfE was “no longer supportive of the project”.
Planned engineering specialist Birkenhead UTC was backed by local employers including shipbuilder Cammell Laird, but was cancelled in May 2013 at a cost of almost £11,000. Liverpool Engineering and Logistics UTC, which counted City of Liverpool College, Liverpool John Moores University and engineering company Laing O’Rourke within its trustees, cost over £245,000 when it was scrapped in August 2014.
Two studio schools – Digital Studio College Derby and London’s Aldridge Centre for Entrepreneurship – cost over £560,000 when they were scrapped.
The most recent free school to have its plans rejected was the North West Leeds Sixth Form Centre, which was cancelled in January this year – eight months before it was due to open – at a cost of £121,864.
The scrapped projects were only identified by the department in the last academic year as a result of “improved financial management” and had not been previously reported, despite some dating back to 2013.
A DfE spokesperson said all free school projects “go through a robust approval process”.
Up to 3,000 people are expected to march on parliament on Wednesday to demand more funding for colleges.
The march for FE, organised by the University and College Union in partnership with the National Union of Students and the Association of Colleges, is the main event taking place during Colleges Week, from October 15 to 19.
The week of action, led by the AoC, aims to “make a lot more noise” about the funding issues affecting the sector.
The UCU estimates that between 2,000 and 3,000 people will show their support for FE that day, with colleges around the country laying on coaches to get protestors to the march.
Two London colleges are even cancelling classes that day so their teachers and learners can attend.
Matt Waddup, the UCU’s head of policy and campaigns, said that staff, learners and college leaders will “march together on Wednesday because colleges are getting a raw deal on funding”.
“Colleges are increasingly unable to compete with schools and universities to retain staff, and budget cuts have led to fewer local learning opportunities for people to upskill and retrain,” he said.
“We need urgent public investment in our colleges and their staff – without it, we risk squandering the potential of millions of people.”
The march will start out from Waterloo Place at 12.45pm, before heading to a rally in Parliament Square from 1.30pm.
Speakers will include shadow education secretary Angela Rayner, AoC chief executive David Hughes and NUS president Shakira Martin.
New City College is closing its four campuses, at Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Redbridge and Epping Forest, that day, its group principal Gerry McDonald said.
“Staff will be free to lobby, march, write to their MPs and meet with stakeholders to really explain the value of what we do and how much we need the years of underinvestment to end,” he said.
Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College is also understood to be closing for the day.
Emily Chapman, NUS vice president for FE, said the union was working to “make sure all colleges are represented in this crucial week for the future of FE”.
This included working with the AoC to ensure student unions were represented, and with principals to provide coaches to Westminster on the day.
As well as the march on parliament, college leaders, staff and students will lobby MPs that day to plead the case for more funding for FE.
Throughout the week, colleges across the country will be putting on their own events and “inviting the local community to celebrate the impact that colleges have”, an AoC spokesperson said.
Colleges Week was prompted by the Department for Education’s decision to fund a 3.5 per cent pay rise for school teachers while ignoring college lecturers – an announcement that left AoC boss David Hughes “angry” and “frustrated”.
“The issue is we are in a very tight funding financial constraint position with government so we have to make a lot more noise and get a lot more students, staff, parents, employers, stakeholders, partners to advocate for colleges,” he told FE Week last month.
Peter Marples (pictured), a multi-millionaire businessman who co-founded 3aaa in 2008, joined the Spencer Academies Trust in December 2015 as a trustee and became its chair in the 2016/17 academic year.
He also heads the trust’s resources and remuneration committees.
Since launching in 2011, the trust has grown to sponsoring 12 schools. This month it took on four more and will take on another one next month following a “merger” with the Trent Academies Group.
Mr Marples resigned from his position at 3aaa last month in the midst of a second Education and Skills Funding Agency investigation, but continued to be its joint majority shareholder with co-founder Di McEvoy-Robinson.
The Department for Education has now referred their investigation findings to the police through Action Fraud. 3aaa has since gone into administration after the department pulled its skills contracts – which totalled over £31 million last year.
More than 500 jobs and the future of 4,500 apprentices are at risk.
Despite the scandal, the Spencer Academies Trust appears to be fully supportive of Mr Marples.
“Peter is a highly respected, valued and effective chairman of our trust,” a spokesperson for the trust said. “We do not comment on matters outside of the Trust.”
When asked for comment, the DfE said it was a matter for the trust.
“Appointments to positions within academy trusts are the responsibility of the trusts themselves; academy trusts must make sure they comply with the terms set out in both their funding agreement and the articles of association, both of which consider suitability tests for key personnel,” a spokesperson said.
FE Week made multiple attempts to contact Mr Marples but he did not respond. He has taken down his LinkedIn and Facebook page in the last couple of days.
According to the trust’s accounts for 2016/17, 3aaa supplied “apprenticeship services” to the Spencer Academies Trust to the value of £11,600, which was “subject to normal procurement procedure”.
The Trent Academies Group will now operate under the Spencer Academies Trust name following the “merger”, and will be “led by” chief executive Paul West and Mr Marples.
The enlarged group will comprise 18 schools which will teach 17,000 students across Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.
The trust said that with anticipated future growth, including the construction of new schools, “nearly 20,000 East Midlands’ pupils and students will be educated in the trust by 2020”.
This was the second government investigation into 3aaa. The first, 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.
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.
The government has insisted “quality” was a factor in choosing 21 colleges to share £40 million funding as maths centres of excellence after concerns over their achievement rates.
The centres for excellence will test and disseminate new ways to improve the teaching of maths to learners who are resitting maths GCSEs, and will share the cash over five years.
According to the Department for Education’s official data for 2016-17, the average A*-C pass rate for general FE colleges was 24.8 per cent, and 39.4 per cent for sixth-form colleges.
However, four colleges and two sixth-form colleges that have been selected as centres for excellence have pass rates below the average.
All six had an A*-C pass rate of less than 25 per cent, with Leyton Sixth Form College in east London at the bottom of the table at just 12.8 per cent.
It is followed by Leeds City College on 17.3 per cent, Tameside College on 18.4 per cent and Christ the King Sixth Form College in south London on 19.2 per cent.
Two college groups – Greater Brighton Metropolitan College and Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group – also came in below average, at 24.2 and 24.3 per cent respectively.
A DfE spokesperson said all colleges picked for the programme “passed the necessary eligibility criteria and were selected based on their leadership qualities, networks in the sector and the quality of their proposed approach”.
FE Week was told the eligibility criteria included the quality of proposed teaching approaches, student support, maths “credibility and capacity”, leadership and networks.
Gill Burbridge, principal of Leyton Sixth Form College, said the A*-C pass rate was so low because they enter all learners for GCSE resits “regardless of their prior achievement”, and pointed to their high progress rates.
“We still have work to do to get more students on higher grades, but that’s part of a national issue and that is what this funding is part of addressing,” she said.
“We are really thrilled to have been given this opportunity. At a time when we are significantly underfunded in terms of base funding, to be able to access some additional funding to work on a priority area like GCSE maths is really good, and a real opportunity for the young people here and in the organisations we work with.”
Louise Turner, director of academic support at Leeds City College, also said their focus was “progression”, and added: “We focus on liberating students from the pressures of believing that only high grades count.”
Progress scores do not always fully reflect the achievements of learners at FE providers, as those who cannot sit exams are automatically given a negative score.
Paul James, deputy principal for curriculum and quality at New College Swindon, said he was concerned about institutions without strong outcomes getting the badge of “centre for excellence”, and said the sector must “commit to clarity about our own performances”.
“I wonder how long it will be before the successful colleges start branding themselves as centres for excellence for maths in marketing materials,” he said.
“The title is value-laden and has the potential to significantly miscommunicate the institution’s position in respect of the challenges they are facing.
“Many applicants will rely on word of mouth, local marketing and reputation to make judgements, and in this respect I worry the centre for excellence may mislead.”
