Revealed: The 30 winners of the Greater London Authority AEB tender

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The names of the 30 providers to win contracts with the Greater London Authority to deliver its devolved adult education budget from August have finally been released.

Of the GLA’s total annual budget of £306 million, around £130 million is being procured over four years.

A tender for a slice of the funding got underway in October and the list of winners was endorsed last month, with the plan to feedback to bidders on April 24.

But owing to a “large number of queries” raised by applicants, this release was delayed.

Documents leaked to FE Week show that the names of the winners (see tables below) were released last night, but their contract values have not yet been revealed.

The GLA said in early April it received 202 bids for the total amount of £811 million. But the results letters sent to providers shows there were actually 336 submissions.

The contracts are worth £32.5 million for 2019/20, approximately £130 million over four years, and are split into two lots: 75 per cent is for one lot dedicated to training out-of-work Londoners; and 25 per cent will go towards a lot for training Londoners who are in-work, particularly those with low-pay or a low level of skills.

A total of 37 contracts, between 30 providers, have been awarded across both lots.

Among those providers chosen to deliver provision to out-of-work Londoners, three are rated ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted and eight have never been inspected.

For those chosen to deliver training for Londoners who are in-work, there is one grade three provider and six that have never been inspected.

One provider to win a contract in both lots is rated ‘outstanding’: East London Advanced Technology Training.

But another, London Skills & Development Network Limited, is rated ‘requires improvement’ overall and ‘inadequate’ for apprenticeships.

While 37 contracts have been procured, the remainder of the GLA’s adult education budget will be dished out to colleges and other institutions that currently receive funding via a grant from the ESFA.

The GLA has previously come in for criticism because of plans for the authority to topslice £3 million from the AEB every year to pay administrators to handle provider contracts.

The mayor was warned in September that a team of 72 administrators may not be enough to handle the fund when devolution kicks in, with procurement being a key issue.

The West Midlands was the first combined authority to release the winners from its AEB tender last week, as revealed by FE Week. They were closely followed by Liverpool City Region.

Tees Valley Combined Authority is understood to currently be in the final stages of funding awards and is expected to make a decision in the coming months, and the West of England Combined Authority is making decisions on allocations at its next committee meeting on June 14.

The procurement exercise being run Greater Manchester Combined Authority is still live, according to a spokesperson. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough’s is also still ongoing.

Lot 1
Ofsted grade
5 E Ltd
2
Big Creative Training Ltd
2
Back 2 Work Complete Training Ltd
early monitoring RP
ELATT (East London Advanced Technology Training)
1
Free to Learn Ltd
never inspected
Gloucestershire College
2
London Learning Consortium Community Interest Company
2
London Skills & Development Network
3
London Vocational College
never inspected
Martinex Ltd t/a Burleigh College
3
Maximus People Services
never inspected
Newham College of Further Education
2
United Colleges Group (City of Westminster College)
never inspected as merged body
Poplar HARCA
never inspected
Rapid Improvement Ltd
never inspected
Reed in Partnership
2
Strive Training
early monitoring SP
Simply One Stop Ltd t/a Learn Plus Us
3
Step Ahead Social Enterprise Community
never inspected
The London Hairdressing Apprenticeship Academy Ltd
2
Vocational Skills Solutions
never inspected
Waltham International College
never inspected

 

Lot 2
Ofsted grade
5 E Ltd
2
Dynamic Training UK Ltd
2
ELATT (East London Advanced Technology Training)
1
Free to Learn Ltd
never inspected
Go Train Ltd
never inspected
JGA Ltd t/a The JGA Group
2
London Vocational College
never inspected
London Borough of Lambeth
2
London Skills & Development Network
3
Maximus People Services
never inspected
Morley College Ltd
2
Pathway First Ltd
2
Poplar HARCA
never inspected
Rapid Improvement Ltd
never inspected
The Consultancy Home Counties Ltd t/a TCHC
2

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2 Comments

  1. Darlene

    It is a huge shame having 41% of none previously quality tested providers now driving long established quality provisions for London. We are now going backwards – with Education and Skills? the question is has the devolution achieved its aims for procured AEB with this outcome. Lots of questions needs to be asked of GLA – e.g. Knowledge of staff – who Scores and Moderates the bids should be questioned

  2. Tony Roberts

    A joke . Devolution is going to kill the inner cities and lead to more deprivation and poverty. Across the country we are seeing large companies getting the contracts literally killing off the voluntary sector . The worst authority here is West Midlands . Terrible that they’ve got no providers operating in the areas that are needed.