§ Mr. Damian GreenTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when her Department first received warnings from training providers that the individual learning account scheme was open to fraud. [14580]
§ John Healey[holding answer 13 November 2001]: 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 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. We have not yet been able to trace any earlier correspondence on the specific topic of potential abuse of the ILA scheme.