Government sounds death knell for ILAs

The government's National Skills Strategy White Paper, due to be published this week, will not revive the controversial individual learning accounts (ILA) training scheme.

Instead, it will offer free training to adults who have not reached the expected education levels of 16-year-olds, and extend adult learning grants to help those wishing to study for the equivalent of A Levels.

ILAs provided grants of up to £200 per person to learn a wide range of new skills, especially in IT. But although many thousands enthusiastically took up the scheme, poor security measures allowed fraudsters to hijack accounts.

Parliament's Public Accounts Committee estimated that as much as £97m may have been siphoned off in this way before the scheme was closed in November 2001. Hundreds of training companies were investigated but arrests have been rare.

Ministers had insisted that a similar wide-ranging scheme would replace ILAs. But a draft report apparently seen by the Financial Times details new plans with only a fraction of the scope of the original scheme.

The report has dismayed consultants, who say many adult learners will be left with no chance to develop new skills.

Training provider Hairnet said it was amazed by the news. It said it hoped the White Paper offered adult learners at least part of what had been included in the ILA scheme.

"We can't believe that there will be nothing considering the government's stated commitment to adult training, especially in IT fields," a Hairnet spokeswoman told vnunet.com.

But while England is seemingly left with no ILA replacement, schemes similar to the original are set to begin in Wales and Scotland.

Education and Learning Wales, the Welsh equivalent of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), has already set up its ILA website and will soon be accepting grant applications. The Scottish Executive has also committed to restarting the scheme.

The DfES has declined to confirm or deny the contents of the Financial Times report.