A rail industry skills bootcamp training provider has been suspended from recruiting new learners amid investigations being conducted by multiple authorities.
Manchester-based Redstone Training moved into the bootcamps space in 2023, receiving almost £3 million in public funding to deliver the short courses across the Liverpool City Region and West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) area.
FE Week understands Network Rail has asked rail regulator the National Skills Academy for Rail (NSAR) to probe a series of allegations brought against the company that would breach its rules.
NSAR declined to comment but the body pulled Redstone from its approved provider list last week and has temporarily suspended the company from delivering NSAR-accredited training.
Redstone Training’s combined authority funders have also taken action, including by suspending starts in at least one area, but have refused to disclose the full nature of the case.
The WMCA, which gave Redstone a skills bootcamp contract worth £1.6 million, said: “The WMCA is investigating matters specific to the delivery of skills bootcamps at Redstone Training. We are unable to comment further.”
The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, which paid £1.25 million to Redstone over the last two years, said: “We are aware NSAR has put a temporary restriction on Redstone’s approval status for the delivery of NSAR-accredited training currently included in skills bootcamps.
“We have suspended the start of any new courses until the matter is resolved and are working to ensure there is no disruption to current learners.”
Liverpool City Region flagged skills programmes as a “major” audit risk in a paper published in December.
Introduced as a publicly funded training route in 2020, skills bootcamps initially focused on getting unemployed people into work in the digital sector, and later expanded to more sectors, including rail.
The government is funding the courses that last up to 16 weeks with £550 million between 2020 and 2025.
Providers are paid in instalments: an upfront 45 per cent fee for enrolling learners, 35 per cent for course completion and 20 per cent for achieving a job offer within six months of finishing the course. The courses are supposed to include a guaranteed job interview and cannot be officially completed until this has taken place.
Redstone Training was incorporated in 2017 and delivers a range of courses for budding rail workers with around 20 staff on its books, according to the company’s latest accounts.
The company came into scope for Ofsted inspection when it moved into the skills bootcamps market and was found to be making “significant progress” in two of three areas in an early monitoring report published in July. There were, however, only 24 learners on programmes at the time of the inspection.
Ofsted’s report praised a “very high standard” of training and commended leaders for monitoring learners’ destinations “for six months from completion of the skills bootcamp”, adding that “most learners remain in employment and benefit from additional training with their employer, gain promotion or take on additional responsibilities such as site warden, welding or de-vegetation”.
Aside from bootcamps, Redstone runs level 1 and level 2 City & Guilds-accredited NVQ courses in engineering and several health and safety and track safety courses.
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “Network Rail is aware of various investigations into Redstone Training, who have been suspended as a training provider to our supply chain until the outcome of those investigations.”
Redstone Training declined to comment.
While NSAR declined to comment on Redstone Training specifically, the regulator said: “Post-training employment requirements mandated by funded training, including skills bootcamps, sit with specific education frameworks owned by a variety of organisations. A provider’s adherence to those frameworks is not under NSAR’s jurisdiction.
“NSAR quality assures that the delivery of training and assessment awarding safety critical competence in Network Rail’s sentinel database has taken place in accordance with Network Rail’s rules, standards and NSAR’s quality assurance framework. The rules prohibit assured providers from sponsoring for training purposes only.
“There has been an increasing trend in sentinel sponsors sponsoring individuals during their training and de-sponsoring them once qualified. Work by the industry, NSAR and supplier assurance organisations has produced an updated version of the Sentinel Scheme Rules to reduce such practices.”
Your thoughts