Apprenticeship training company enters administration

Elmfield Training, a Warrington-based apprenticeship and vocational training provider, has entered administration.

The BBC reported that Elmfield received more than £100 million in public money to offer its services. It employs a total of 600 people and at the moment is working to prevent job losses, although it is unclear if it will manage to achieve this as yet.

Elmfield has been plagued by accusations of misuse of funding. An investigation by the Skills Funding Agency is ongoing, while a previous investigation by the BBC Newsnight programme suggested that employees had regularly been asked to claim funding for people who never wanted to do an apprenticeship, by altering their forms.

Where the firm did provide apprenticeships, the quality was questionable. A report from Ofsted found problems with the company's biggest contract, Morrisons: “Success rates in the apprenticeship programmes experienced a considerable decline last year and a high proportion of learners within the Morrisons contract did not complete the full framework.

“Furthermore, the number of learners who completed their apprenticeship in the planned time fell to an unacceptably low level of 33 per cent," the report read.

A statement from Elmfield Training noted that the business has faced “a number of very difficult challenges” in the past few months. It added: “The board and its advisers have been working hard with major stakeholders in recent weeks to try and put the business on a sounder long term footing. These efforts are continuing in order to seek to preserve jobs and protect learners.

“Whilst this is on-going the directors have taken steps to protect the company through an administration process.”

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