Even Learndirect’s own membership body, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, has demanded a full explanation of how the government will protect current and future students.

The Department for Education admitted this week it will continue to fund the nation’s biggest FE provider for current and new students until July 31, 2018, following its ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating.

This allows Learndirect Ltd to see out their apprenticeship and adult education budget contracts, which were due to end anyway at this point, without the need for a damaging three month early termination notice, which would normally be triggered by a grade four.

Waiving the early termination will be of great personal relief to the directors of Learndirect.

The government’s ‘funding higher-risk organisations and subcontractors’ guidance says their future funding and bids could be rejected where there has been “early termination of a funding agreement or a subcontract to deliver education and training services funded by the SFA within the last three years”.

And Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd, set up by two of the Learndirect Ltd directors last year, will remain on the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers and continue to access unlimited public funding for apprentices at large levy-paying employers.

Although the DfE claimed in a ‘blog’ that this isn’t special treatment, and waiving of a termination notice was to “protect” learners, concern is mounting for current and future students.

AELP boss Mark Dawe has now called on the government to spell out what it has planned, during an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live.

Learners need to be moved quickly to other good quality providers

“The government claim they are winding down the contract to protect learners and ensure they are not damaged by this, which is fine providing if it is very clear what the government is going to do, as well as Ofsted’s monitoring, to ensure that Learndirect improves the delivery,” he said yesterday.

If students are going to get “more of the same” training, then that is “not going to do any of the 79,000 learners any good whatsoever”, he added.

Mr Dawe urged the government to move the affected learners “quickly, like they have been with other providers, to other good quality providers” and asked for clarity over ministers’ plans to help affected learners.

“If there is something in place where they can guarantee that the money is going to get to the learners, and it is going to be high quality, the government needs to be very transparent about that and tell us what they are doing, and why they’re doing it, and how it is going to work.”

FE Week put Mr Dawe’s comments to the DfE, and asked for clarification on what they plan to do.

But the department refused to answer questions on how or if quality at Learndirect would be monitored.

During a judicial review where Learndirect unsuccessfully attempted to quash its grade four report, attended by FE Week, it was revealed that no evidence of initial assessment or individual learning plans could be found for a random sample of five apprentices during Ofsted’s inspection.

More than a third of apprentices were also found to not be receiving their off the job training entitlement. This in itself could raise questions as to whether the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s funding rules had been broken.

“They [Learndirect’s learners] deserve good quality training and deserve management systems which monitors their training and ensures this is happening,” Mr Dawe said.

“All of this costs money, so what we need to ensure is if the funding agency is going to give further money for these learners, that is either through Learndirect or other providers they make sure learners are getting the training outcomes that they deserve.”

An Ofsted spokesperson told FE Week the inspectorate was “reviewing what further inspection or monitoring we might undertake, with respect to remaining provision, in the interest of learners”.

FE Week was first to report the Learndirect grade four, after successfully over-turning a gagging order, and jointly worked on the investigation with the Financial Times.

Ofsted has hit the headlines over the publication of its damning grade four-overall verdict on FE giant Learndirect – during a week which also saw another provider slump to ‘inadequate’.

Reports into both UK Training and Development Limited and Learndirect Limited were published on August 17, and were both based on inspections carried out almost five months ago.

Ineffective safeguarding arrangements and poor progress among 16- to 18-year-old apprentices were among the issues that dragged down the former, based in Hertfordshire.

The report, based on an inspection carried out from March 29 to 30, and from April 6 and 7, awarded the provider inadequate overall and for effectiveness of leadership and management, but grade three in all other areas.

Inspectors found that apprentices and employers lacked a “sufficient understanding of safeguarding”, while “managers’ responsibilities for safeguarding are not clearly defined and acted upon”.

“Too few” apprentices “achieve their English functional skills” qualifications or “improve their mathematical skills”, while “too few” of those aged 16 to 18 “achieve their full apprenticeship programme”.

The provider, which mainly delivers apprenticeship training in hairdressing and barbering for more than 400 small employers, was also criticised for failing to “ensure that all apprentices’ off-the-job training is recorded, monitored and is of high quality”.

Learndirect’s Ofsted report – based on an inspection from March 20 to 23 – was finally published on Thursday, after the Sheffield-based provider failed in its court battle to have the verdict overturned.

The country’s largest independent training provider was rated ‘inadequate’ overall and for learner outcomes, but ‘requires improvement’ in all other areas.

Leaders were slammed for failing to “take swift and decisive action to stem the decline in performance over the past three years”, with “not enough” apprentices and learners achieving their qualifications.

Performance management of subcontractors – of which the report indicates there are 54 – was singled out for criticism, with the result that “apprentices taking qualifications with subcontractors achieve significantly less well than apprentices trained directly by learndirect”.

Managers’ poor performance management of tutors and assessors was also found to have contributed to a failure “to raise the quality of teaching, learning and assessment consistently across different subcontractors and learndirect centres”.

Meanwhile, the only other FE and skills report published this week revealed that independent training provider All Trades Training Limited had slipped one grade to ‘requires improvement’.

The report, based on an inspection in early July and published August 17, found that “too many” apprentices at the Hertfordshire-based provider “make slow progress towards achieving their qualifications”.

Leaders’ evaluation of provision was deemed “overgenerous”, and it did not “focus sufficiently on the impact that teaching, learning and assessment have on apprentices’ progress and development”.

“Too many” apprentices with “considerable vocational experience” at the start of their courses “find the work too easy” and were not sufficiently challenged to “help them further develop their practical vocational skills and fulfil their potential”.

In addition, the “quality of teaching, learning and assessment” was found to have not “improved quickly enough”.

 

Independent Learning Providers	Inspected	Published	Grade	Previous grade
Learndirect Limited	20/03/2017	17/08/2017	4	2
All Trades Training Limited	04/07/2017	17/08/2017	3	2
UK Training and Development Limited	29/03/2017	17/08/2017	4	2