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"This was not just mismanagement. In my view, based on the evidence I've got from a number of sources, this was deliberate and systematic fraud by officers of the council "

The Training boom

Bradford council moved into the training business 15 years ago, when the Tory government poured money into its new Youth Training Scheme (YTS). This was followed by Employment Training (ET) in the late eighties, before the bubble burst and the money began to dry up. This inevitably meant cuts in the councils adult training provision, including its Business Administration and Information Technology Centre (BAIT) at Metrochange House.

As well as funding cuts, the way the money was allocated also changed radically. Initially only about 10% of the funds were dependent on "successful outcomes" - NVQ awards gained. By 1996 75% of the money depended on delivering these results. The council was producing around 280 NVQ passes a year and was receiving £1.8 million from the TEC, of which £1.2 million was dependent on successful NVQ awards.

The pressure was on, and would eventually lead to disaster.

Fraud

In 1997 things were already in an unhappy state at Metrochange House. Students complained that work was being left unmarked, sometimes for as long as a year. Procedures were not being properly followed and students were not receiving any "at work" supervision, a crucial aspect of the award.

Staff too complained of poor management, lack of resources and understaffing. It seems their complaints were ignored also.

But far worse than this was the allegation that NVQ certificates were being routinely claimed for students who had not earned them. It seems this fraud increased as the pressure for results increased.

In 1996 the council had identified Telephone Call Centres as the answer to the city's jobs crisis, and Call Centre training as a potentially lucrative enterprise. In December that year the councils new Call Centre Training Unit was opened.

In July 1997, council Training manager Mick Binns reported to the councils Training sub-committee: "There is clearly more demand than can be met at present. It is proposed that the capacity of the Unit be doubled, from 2 to 4 trainers".

The proposal was approved and staff were moved from Metrochange House, leaving only 2 fully qualified trainers left to deal with 120 students.

Yet, incredibly, by December Mick Binns was telling the sub-committee "It is anticipated that National Vocational Qualifications outputs will exceed target levels."

There could be no way this was going to happen legitimately.

In October 1997, out of desperation one staff member made a complaint through her union Unison, outlining the fraudulent practices by management. This was passed to one of the senior officers in charge of the councils training centres, Terry Davies.

Unison rep Brian Foster told KDIS:

"A member came to see me and made certain allegations about practices which were alleged to be going on about the award of NVQ's at Metrochange House and which caused me concern. Yes, I did take that matter up with Terry Davies. That would have been sometime in the late autumn of 1997. I got a reply from Terry Davies and conveyed that reply to the person who'd raised that issue with me."

KDIS understands that Davies checked the files, which must have revealed the fraud. Yet no apparent action was taken. Instead, the person who raised the issue would soon find herself out of a job.

The government swoops

During the winter of 1997/98 Metrochange House underwent it's regular "audit" by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) - the body which awarded the NVQ's, and also by the government's own watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). Amazingly it seems to have passed both.

But staff found themselves in a desperate position, and as no help from senior officers appeared, one member was forced to take the only other available option and become a "whistleblower" to the governments QCA.

A complaint was made to QCA sometime in February 1998, 5 months after the previous internal complaint had produced no results. Nick Tate, QCA's Chief Executive told KDIS:

"QCA treats allegations of malpractice in the NVQ system very seriously. As soon as the allegations were made we set up an investigation and immediately sent a team from our compliance section to Bradford."

On Friday, February 27th, 1998, the team walked into Metrochange House unannounced and immediately set about gathering up every completed student portfolio they could get their hands on. They found 28. They also began interviewing staff and management.

Denise Dring, manager at the Metrochange House centre, went on immediate, extended sick leave. She was off for 6 months.

LCCI subsequently took away a further 14 portfolios, bringing the total to 42. Eventually 73 completed portfolios, dating back to January 1996, were taken and invalidated.

The crisis deepens

A fortnight after QCA swooped, Terry Davies gathered staff together in Metrochange House and announced that he and Mick Binns would be conducting their own internal inquiry. Staff were not impressed. Some felt that Davies was himself involved, since he'd known what was going on for months.

3 months later, as this conflict became evident and concerns were raised by Unison, the internal inquiry was passed to the councils own "fraud squad" - Internal Audit, based in the Finance department.

Meanwhile, LCCI moved to suspend Metrochange House from further NVQ awards. T&A reporter Olwen Vasey got wind of this, and the story finally broke on June 9th under the headline "Training centre is suspended".

On June 18 LCCI sent a summary of its findings to the council; the work of the 82 current students would have to be completely redone. The students were devastated.

Soon afterwards QCA announced it was extending it's inquiries into all the other council NVQ training centres, including those at Mitre Court, Cutler Heights and Bradford Itec.

On July 1st the issue had its first public airing when a detailed report euphemistically titled "NVQ irregularities", put together by Mick Binns, was delivered to the councils Regeneration Committee. It stated that work was underway to put right the procedural failings at each training centre, but the issue of fraud was raised by opposition councillors only obliquely.

The report also suggested that the Metrochange House centre be closed. Committee chairman Dave Green promised a swift and thorough inquiry.

In the months that followed the crisis deepened further as other awarding bodies, including RSA and Excedel, launched their own inquiries.

LCCI announced a further 31 awards were invalid.

In response the council turned it's fire on the awarding body itself. Mick Binns said that they had not received the support they'd hoped for from LCCI. The council announced it was dropping LCCI in favour of RSA.

The council also started criticising the government watchdog QCA for holding back progress. But in fact, the councils own internal inquiry had apparently made virtually no progress since it began, and the prospect of a final report was as distant in September as it had been in March.

Closure

The centre at Metrochange House continued to operate, having been reprieved temporarily when students organised a petition. On September 29th Mick Binns reported that "after further consultation it was agreed that the centre at Metrochange House would be revamped and re-established."

On Monday, October 5th, LCCI sent in a team to conduct a "Training Needs Analysis" to determine what steps were needed to turn the centre around. They promised a quick report. The following week LCCI sent a fax to the council saying that the report would be ready by the 19th. The fax stated:

"There are some major problems that have been identified, however after careful consideration I believe that we will be able to offer a training plan that would address these problems. It will not be an overnight solution, but with commitment and hard work I do not feel that the problems are insurmountable."

It seemed that there was "light at the end of the tunnel" for Metrochange House.

Yet only days before the report was due, the Regeneration divisions top officer David Kennedy, after consulting councillor Dave Green, suddenly announced that the centre was to shut immediately.

The 12 staff were told the news on Friday October 16th and were clearly shocked and distressed. Some were in tears. They were told they would be re-deployed to other council departments.

This bizarre turn-around has never been adequately explained.

At the time Labour councillor Malcolm Slater told the T&A:

"Problems have arisen with implementing the new procedures (as required by QCA) and the decision to close has been taken with the welfare of the trainees at the centre in mind, so that they can continue their studies with other training providers with as little further disruption as possible."

Terry Davies, in a report to the Training sub-committee on November 4th, said:

"It became apparent that yet more delay and disruption would inevitably be suffered by the 84 trainees who were currently training at Metrochange House. With the welfare of these trainees in mind, the Strategic Director, using delegated powers under Standing Order C15, took the decision to close the Training Centre at Metrochange House".

In an otherwise open and frank interview with KDIS earlier this month, Regeneration committee chairman councillor Dave Green struggled to explain this decision:

".. there were further problems other than those just highlighted in the final report from LCCI regarding Metrochange House ...We took and discussed these other issues on a broader level with people who knew and understood and decided it would be best if we took that course of action, which was a very difficult one, which was to close it. Unfortunately I can't go into the full details, and I'm not trying to be mysterious. But certainly information that was given to us as the council indicated that there were these wider issues that needed to be addressed."

4 days later the LCCI produced their report. It outlined a staff training programme, with costings, and concluded:

"We are confident, that if the recommendations made in this report are adhered to then staff can be retrained to enable them to obtain the necessary levels of competence to support future qualifications".

The report indicated that the cost could be as little as £5000. The report has never been made public.

Burying the problem

1999 came with news that 6 of the former staff from Metrochange House were issuing formal complaints of mismanagement and harassment. Their GMB union representative, Ray Alderman, told KDIS that the staff were very distressed at the way they had been treated and particularly at the implication that they were involved. He also confirmed that most of them were only now being interviewed by the councils Internal Audit - almost a year since QCA first swooped!

On February 10th opposition councillors again tried to find out when they could expect to see a written report on the events. The Training sub-committee was given a report on progress to re-approve its training centres for NVQ's. There was no mention of Metrochange House and no reference to the staff complaints. This inevitably led to a row.

Tory councillor Kris Hopkins said "We've had nothing at all in writing. We're doing things based on no evidence. We're only being given the glossy version but we're not getting the truth. It supports a cover-up".

Lib-Dem councillor Dave Ward was furious: "This report is outrageous. They are treating Metrochange House as though it never existed."

But Labour were clearly keen to bury the whole issue of Metrochange House and avoid any "post-mortems" at all costs. The Labour chair, councillor Flo Collard, said: "We've done all we can for Metrochange House. It's time we moved on".

The Internal Audit Report

In an interview with KDIS on February 18, Labour councillor Dave Green said that the final touches were currently being added to the Internal Audit report:

"Its a management document, and as I understand it it's being completed at the moment. It can include recommendations relating to discipline and it will also, I imagine, include recommendations regarding future procedures relating to training and NVQs. It's not a political document and it won't became a public document"

He said there will be a version of the report produced for the public, which should include some details of what happened, but explained:

"I have to say that the mechanistic reasons of what went wrong, we are well aware of, and have been working since day one with QCA and LCCI and everyone else whose involved to put into place new mechanisms and procedures that will ensure that we don't get a repeat, and those are the reports that have been regularly going to committee"

He blamed "external factors" for the delay in producing it:

"Some of it is beyond our control. A lot of the evidence the internal inquiry needs, people like LCCI and QCA have first call on. And therefore a lot of the stuff the internal inquiry has needed has actually been with those bodies. Like the portfolios of the trainees and stuff like that."

But that couldn't explain the almost year-long delay in interviewing the Metrochange staff. councillor Green said:

"My understanding is that part of the reason for the hold-up is external factors, including the illness of certain people that needed to be interviewed, which held it up. I certainly think that they have now managed to interview all the main names that have been in the frame. There's an order in which you need to interview people, as I understand, and it may be that one of the key people that needed to be interviewed was on long term sick. And that blocked it. And while I appreciate the frustration, I would rather they got it thoroughly right than did it quickly. It's too important for everyone involved."

He was quick to reject any suggestion of a cover-up:

"There's no cover-up. I understand that people are frustrated and that people believe that they're not being treated fairly or have not been treated fairly in the past. I'm not aware of any direct claims of a cover-up and I think anybody whose ever dealt with Internal Audit section would find that hard to believe, because they are bloody good at what they do."

He accepted that the council had become complacent with it's own monitoring, relying too much on the external auditors like QCA, and promised that this would be put right. But he said that the same problems could be found almost anywhere in the country:

"I think that what has been identified here relates to a number of things really, but the main thing I think is funding. We've had a history over the last few years where the pressure has been on centres to get outputs, because that's where you get your money. So the pressure is on almost for quantity rather than quality, and I think there is always that temptation there to try and find short cuts.

"I'm not saying that's what happened at Metrochange House, what I'm saying is that it's been known to happen elsewhere. And I think what we need to do is step back and look at what we want from our vocational training, how we want it to be organised. Because I would much prefer something that concentrates more on quality than on quantity and output, and more concentration on employability rather than NVQ's. The two don't always go together."

But councillor David Ward, who has followed events at Metrochange House closely, wants to see more specific action:

"This was not just mismanagement. In my view, based on the evidence I've got from a number of sources, this was deliberate and systematic fraud by officers of the council. That ought to be recognised and action ought to be taken on that.

"I would hope that some of the Metrochange staff would get some compensation from the authority for what has happened. If they'd have responded straight away to the comments that were made to them, then the staff wouldn't have had do go through what they have. And in fact, Metrochange House would still be open"

 A top level report into NVQ fraud at the Councils former Metrochange House Training centre has finally been shown to senior councillors from all parties.

Councillors have ordered a further investigation into possible disciplinary action against certain named council officers. This will be undertaken by The councils Regeneration Director David Kennedy.

Bradford Councils Internal Audit began the detailed inquiry into allegations of fraud following the suspension of NVQ awards at Metrochange House 18 months ago. The 1200 page report, which remains secret to all but a handful of councillors and officials, is said to be "thorough".

Former Metrochange House training boss Denise Dring is the most likely of the staff to face disciplinary proceedings.

Other training centres at Bradford Itec, Keighley Training Group and Mitre Court, have all since been re-approved as awarding bodies.

February 1, 2000.

Bradford Council announced that further NVQ training was to be discontinued.

At a full council meeting, Councillor Dave Green said: "The Council notes the diverse training needs of the community and businesses in the District. These needs have not necessarily been best served by the historical funding regimes, linked with national training programmes that have failed to address all the local aspirations of those involved.

"The Council therefore resolves to inform Bradford and District TEC that BMDC will not be bidding for NVQ delivery contracts from April 2000."

Report to Regeneration Committee, 1 July 1998

Report to Training Sub-committee, 29 September 1998

Report to Training Sub-committee, 4 November 1998

LCCI - Training Needs Analysis Report on Metrochange House, 20 October 1998

Report to Training Sub-committee, 10 February 1999

Report to Regeneration committee, 22 September 1999

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