The Government has closed down its Individual Learning Account
(ILA) scheme two weeks ahead of schedule and launched a major fraud
investigation.
The Department for Education and Skills (DFES) called in police to
investigate alleged fraud and theft involving ILAs after a tip off
last week from a provider.
The ILA programme was to have been suspended from 7 December after
ministers admitted the whole scheme had been open to fraud and
mis-selling.
The DFES is investigating 270 training providers; and 30 people
have been arrested following complaints made by the public to
trading standards organisations across the UK.
The Government has admitted that it carried out only minimal checks
on training companies that conned thousands of workers out of
government grants in return for non-existent or poor quality IT
training programmes.
News of the suspension raised fears that legitimate IT training
programmes would be forced to close and that smaller employers
would find it more difficult to train staff in IT skills.
Today's developments will compound that concern.
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