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LEARNING ACCOUNTS TO BE SUSPENDED Education and Skills Secretary, Estelle Morris, today announced that the Individual Learning Account (ILA) programme is to be suspended from December 7 in England. The programme has exceeded the Government’s expectations in encouraging very large numbers of people to take a new interest in learning, and has quickly expanded beyond its capacity. The Government is also concerned by evidence that some ILAs have been exploited by companies providing poor value for money. To tackle these concerns, the Government has decided to suspend its current ILA programme. Ms Morris said: "The programme has attracted over 2.5 million account holders and has been a great success in bringing down the financial barriers to learning. ILAs have opened up access for a great many people to a wide range of learning opportunities. However, the rapid growth of the scheme has exceeded all expectations, causing us to think again about how best to target public funds in this area and secure value for money. "I also have concerns about the way some ILAs have been promoted and sold. There is growing evidence that some companies are abusing the scheme by offering low value, poor quality learning. We are keen that this does not undermine what has been a very successful programme and so we are acting quickly to protect the interests of individual learners. We have therefore decided to prevent any further take-up of ILAs. "We are writing to all ILA account holders and learning providers registered with the ILA Centre to inform them that ILAs are going to be withdrawn and to assure them that the decision to end the programme has not been made lightly. The scheme is now closed to applications for new accounts, but learning begun by existing account holders will continue to be supported provided it is booked with the ILA Centre by 7 December." "We remain committed to a forward-looking policy of encouraging the widest possible participation in lifelong learning. We have learnt a lot from our ILA programme and we will use this knowledge to move ahead in encouraging everyone to participate in the ‘learning society’. Our commitment to enabling access to lifelong learning is cast-iron." This Press Notice applies to England.
InTek Training (UK) Ltd would like to assure all its clients both current and potential that in no way does this affect the high quality of service that InTek Training (UK) Ltd provides to its clients. InTek Training has not and never will employ unethical marketing campaigns associated with any training courses and, or grants schemes that its supports. Currently there are a number of police investigations under way looking at a number of training organisations around the UK and the methods that they have used in marketing the ILA grant scheme. InTek Training (UK) Ltd would like to assure all of its clients that we are not one of these companies and have never engaged in any underhand or illegal practices which may be construed fraudulent. For further details or additional information regarding this notice please contact InTek Training (UK) Ltd on: 0116 - 2425400 Chris Norton Operations Manager InTek Training (UK) Ltd.
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