HC Deb 19 December 2001 vol 377 cc405-10W
Mr. Liddell-Grainger

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will implement measures to ensure that industry is(a) consulted and (b) represented in attempts to replace the individual learning accounts scheme. [23544]

John Healey

Some discussions have already been held with training providers. We are now about to seek the views of a wider range of stakeholders. This will include representatives of industry and employers, both large and small. The views obtained will be an important element in designing a new ILA-style programme.

Mr. Bercow

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment she had made of the deadweight cost of individual learning accounts. [19526]

John Healey

With any universal offer deadweight will exist. Although not an exact calculation, an assessment of deadweight within the ILA programme can be based upon the evaluation evidence drawn from a series of hypothetical questions. Based on the sample selected the first stage evaluation showed that 44 per cent, of account holders said that they would have been able to pay for their course without their ILA discount.

Mr. Swire

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what is the first date her Department was informed of alleged misuse of individual learning accounts. [21305]

John Healey

My Department actively engaged learning providers in the development of the individual learning accounts programme. For example, a number of seminars were held with learning providers in 2000, prior to the introduction of the national framework for individual learning accounts, and these continued into 2001. At these events providers expressed a wide range of opinions. In September 2000 James O'Brien, Managing Director, Pitman Training, wrote to Ministers to express concern that the programme was open to abuse, but also said that the cap on public support for each individual's ILA account introduced to help control such abuse had been set at too low a level. This is the earliest correspondence we have traced on the specific topic of potential misuse of the ILA scheme.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many learning providers were registered with the individual learning accounts centre on 27 November. [23109]

John Healey

[holding answer 17 December 2001]: When the individual learning account programme closed on 23 November 2001, there were 8,900 learning providers registered with the ILA centre.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to her answer of 11 December 2001,Official Report, column 814W, on individual learning accounts, by whom it is not expected that the Department should offer financial advice. [23580]

John Healey

It is not expected within the design or operation of the ILA programme that the Department should provide financial advice to any firm that considered participating in the ILA programme or that was affected by its closure.

Paul Holmes

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when pending ILA applicants will be validated so that training providers can be paid outstanding money. [23437]

John Healey

[holding answer 18 December 2001]: Officials have, as a matter of priority, been working to validate outstanding claims for payment to learning providers. I can confirm that we will be making payments this week to almost 1,400 providers who had submitted claims up to 21 November. There are, however, a smaller number of claims from around 140 providers, in some cases for significant amounts, on which we need to carry out further checks before payments can be cleared. Officials will be writing this week to all providers whose claims were outstanding up to 21 November to explain the general arrangements for taking forward the processing of existing and future claims.

We are also continuing to work on validating claims made between 21 and 23 November and on dealing with learning booked on the ILA system up to its closure on 23 November. Once we are satisfied that eligible learning has taken place in accordance with the rules of the programme, we will be able to arrange payments to all providers who are not currently subject to investigation, provided that this status does not change following the analysis of recent complaints received.

Paul Holmes

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what checks were carried out to prevent multiple ILA applications from single addresses. [23439]

John Healey

[holding answer 18 December 2001]: A full common address trawl of the ILA system has been carried out to identify multiple individual applications at the same address. This led to investigations by the Department into 41 providers. As a result 15 providers were suspended from the register of learning providers eligible to receive funds from the ILA programme. Investigations are continuing.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to the statement of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State responsible for adult skills the hon. Member for Wentworth (John Healey) of 11 December 2001,Official Report, Westminster Hall, columns 218–224WH, on individual learning accounts, what the budget was for ILA by March 2002; and how many of the accounts were budgeted to be used. [23541]

John Healey

[holding answer 17 December 2001]: The total budget available in England over the two years 2000–01 and 2001–02 is £202.1 million, which includes £115.1 million which has been recycled from TEC resources. The aim was to have 1 million ILAs opened by March 2002. No precise number was set for ILAs budgeted to be used, as the ILA programme was an entirely new and innovative programme for which take-up could not accurately be predicted in its early years.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to her answer of 11 December 2001,Official Report, column 813W, on individual learning accounts, whether there were constraints upon the absolute exercise of the Secretary of State's discretion; and whether the power of the Secretary of State to close down the learning account scheme immediately and without notice was publicised to (a) learning account holders and (b) learning account providers. [23581]

John Healey

The only constraints on the absolute exercise of the Secretary of State's discretion would be where this was inconsistent with natural justice.

The Secretary of State and I took the decision to shut down the programme with immediate effect from 6.30pm on 23 November. That decision was taken to minimise a serious risk to public funds. Under these circumstances, there was no time to notify providers or account holders in advance.

The shutdown meant that neither the ILA account holders database nor the ILA learning providers database was available to us. However, we issued a press statement on 23 November and provided notification of the shut down-on both the Department and Capita websites which we updated as new information became available. We were also able to resume the operation of the ILA helpline for account holders, on a limited basis, on 27 November.

All learning providers were notified by letter on 29 November.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to her answer of 11 December 2001,Official Report, column 814W, on individual learning accounts, if she will give reasons for not offering compensation in the circumstances described. [23584]

John Healey

The purpose of the ILA scheme was not to give people rights to money but to encourage them to undertake learning.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether her Department has contacted the Data Protection Registrar about possible unauthorised access to the ILA account holders database; and if she will make a statement. [23577]

John Healey

The Department has not contacted the Information Commissioner (previously Data Protection Registrar) concerning possible unauthorised access to the ILA account holder's database. The Department's Special Investigations Unit has been working closely with the police and where prima facie evidence of criminal activity has been found the police have been asked to take over investigations.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to her answer of 11 December 2001,Official Report, column 813W, on individual learning accounts, if she will pay interest on sums due to learning providers but not paid on time. [23586]

John Healey

The Department has no plans to pay interest to learning providers on payments delayed because of the closure of the individual learning account programme on 23 November 2001 following evidence of serious potential fraud and theft.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills to which individuals and organisations the individual learning account holders database has been available since April. [23543]

John Healey

Learners and potential learners could visit the website (www.my-ila.com) only for information purposes and to request application packs. Registered learning providers could access the database once they had been provided with a user name and password. This allowed them to register courses, book learning and to confirm learning had taken place. Learning providers could only view personal name and address details of individuals registered on courses with that learning provider. Staff in DfES had view access only. The organisation 'learndirect' had a separate although restricted access to allow them to issue application packs to inquirers.

Selected Capita staff at the ILA centre locations in Coventry and Darlington, together with the programme development team at Trowbridge, had operational access to the database in order to administer the programme.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to her answer of 11 December 2001,Official Report, column 813W, on individual learning accounts, if she will place in the Library a copy of the rules of the programme. [23587]

John Healey

Copies of the definition of eligible learning, the regulations and guidance and the incentives rules have been placed in the Library.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to the statement by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State responsible for adult skills the hon. Member for Wentworth (John Healey) of 11 December 2001,Official Report, Westminster Hall, columns 218–224WH, on individual learning accounts whether the aim was that all holders should have used their accounts to embark on a course of eligible learning by March 2002. [23542]

John Healey

[holding answer 17 December 2001]: Our aim was to have 1 million account holders by March 2002. By July 2001 we had 1.5 million account holders in England.

Mr. Andrew Turner

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list those representations she received before 24 October on the administration of the ILA scheme, distinguishing those which identified the danger of(a) fraud and (b) financial over-run. [19465]

John Healey

[holding answer 30 November 2001]: I have already announced to the House details about complaints and I refer the hon. Member to the reply given on PQ12290.

We have received a number of representations about fraud from hon. Members, individual learning account holders and individual learning account registered learning providers. It is established practice that the Department is only expected to publish or list correspondence if it has specifically invited stakeholders to write or feedback on an issue and that the information supplied will be placed in the public domain. We have not received any representation about financial over-run.

Paul Holmes

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether individual learning account numbers were randomly generated. [23435]

John Healey

[holding answer 18 December 2001]: Individual learning account numbers consisted of 10 digits. The first nine digits were sequential; the last digit was randomly selected.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, pursuant to her answer of 11 December 2001,Official Report, column 813W, on individual learning accounts, for what reason those account holders who had not used their accounts by 23 November cannot be subject to a validation process as a condition of being able to undertake eligible learning. [23582]

John Healey

The Individual Learning Account programme was closed on 23 November as a result of evidence of serious potential fraud and theft. That decision was taken to minimise a serious risk to public funds. However, subject to new validation arrangements, all eligible learning booked onto the ILA system before 6.30 pm on 23 November will be honoured.

The programme is now closed to the further booking of learning by ILA account holders and learning providers. Account holders who did not have their learning booked onto the ILA system by 23 November will not be able to benefit from a discount on the cost of their learning.

Mr. Swire

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills by what means the Government intend to enable genuine learning providers to access moneys that have been diverted to bogus learning providers. [21078]

John Healey

The ILA programme was shut down on 23 November and closed to the further booking of learning by learning providers. Officials are setting up, as a matter of priority, arrangements to validate outstanding payments and claims for payment from learning providers so that the majority of providers, who have acted honestly throughout, can be paid as quickly as possible. We will pay for eligible learning that has already taken place and for learning that is already booked on the ILA Centre's system, providing we are satisfied that eligible learning is undertaken, in accordance with the rules of the programme. Learning which was not booked onto the ILA system before the programme was shut down will not benefit from an ILA discount.

The overall purpose of ILAs was to help people overcome the financial barriers to learning by helping with the costs. The incentives and discounts were placed in the hands of the individual as they are best placed to choose learning that is most beneficial to their training needs. Some learning providers will, as a result, have received an increase in their business because of ILAs.

However, learning providers can only access moneys if an account holder has decided to use their ILA to help pay for learning at their establishment.

The Department has already been successful in reclaiming public funds and is actively working with other partner organisations including the police to recover funds wherever possible.

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many holders of individual learning accounts have complained to her Department about their account being been used without their authority. [23108]

John Healey

[holding answer 17 December 2001]: As at 30 November 5,732 complaints had been received from individuals about ILA incentives taken without their knowledge, out of over 2.6 million account holders.