The cheats who left IT training in limbo

Individual learning accounts were an excellent idea. The £200 grants were introduced in September 2000 by the Department for Education to encourage individuals to take up IT or maths training.

On 25 October, John Healey, parliamentary under-secretary of state for adult skills sent a letter to the 8,500 training providers praising them for their work and telling them that 2.5 million people had opened ILAs of which one million had actually used the accounts.

The scheme was extended to stay open until 7 December to enable more would-be IT professionals to come forward.

But then, as with all good government schemes, disaster struck. Allegations of fraud abounded and the scheme was canned leaving thousands of students without a place to learn and thousands of training providers having to foot the bill.

Now it is a given that fraud is wrong and must be stamped out. But it is not right that the legitimate companies helping to reduce the skills shortage should be penalised for the greed and thieving of a few.

Capita's mismanagement of the programme has resulted in hundreds of small companies staring down the barrel of bankruptcy.

James O'Brien, a founder of the Association of Computer Trainers, suggested training organisations be allowed to take over the administration of the scheme. So far this is the most sensible suggestion to come out of the whole debacle.

The scheme is agreed by all to be worthwhile and a success. It is about time that mismanagement by a private company was not the reason for a government scheme failure.