HC Deb 17 March 1998 vol 308 cc596-7W
Mr. David Davis

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list incidents of fraud and payment errors in connection with the award of NVQs in each of the last three financial years. [34818]

Dr. Howells

The Department logs all reported incidents of alleged fraud on Training and Enterprise Council (TEC) delivered programmes funded by the Department. Since 30 August 1995,105 cases have been recorded. Those involving invalid NVQs in the last three financial years are 1994–95 (Nil), 1995–96 (4) and 1996–97 (8).

It is not practical for the Department to log discrete NVQ payment errors by Training and Enterprise Councils.

Mr. David Davis

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what measures he is taking to(a) evaluate and (b) reduce the scale of (i) financial and (ii) academic fraud concerning vocational qualifications. [34819]

Dr. Howells

The Department has established a financial scrutiny unit with the particular purpose of investigating allegations of fraud involving training providers contracted with TECs, including abuse of vocational qualifications. I have recently announced a strengthening of that unit. The Department has also established a 'fraud hotline' (0800 163 339) to enable suspicions of fraud to be promptly and directly reported to the Department. The maintenance of the standards of vocational qualifications is the prime responsibility of awarding bodies and the Department is currently providing £1.5 million to support additional external verification of NVQs by awarding bodies to help in assuring standards of assessment in TEC funded programmes. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) has established a compliance investigation section to investigate allegations of abuse of vocational qualifications accredited by it. The QCA's section works closely with the Department's financial scrutiny unit.