GTSLearning PLC joins voice on Government ILA fiasco

GTSLearning is a developer and publisher of learning material for academic, commercial and corporate training organisations. One of its areas of expertise is in the development of ECDL learning materials, for the classroom, self-study student and the web. All such material is officially endorsed by the ECDL Foundation and has so far been translated into three foreign languages.

GTSLearning plc is a three year-old business, financed for the major part by the management of the company.

Last August GTSLearning contracted with one ILA training provider to print and ship manuals directly to their students. By the close of the programme, GTSLearning had delivered approximately 6,000 units of courseware - all documented and verifiable. The DFES have not paid the learning provider as they are (rightly or wrongly, time will tell) "being investigated". Therefore, the learning provider has still not paid GTSLearning.

This represents a significant amount of money, which GTSLearning would normally never have extended on credit, were it not for the fact that it was dealing with a government-approved learning supplier, who was being paid twice monthly by the government - that is, until they stopped payments without any notice. This was in mid-October 2001.

When the government stopped paying ILA Providers, it should not have allowed those learning providers to keep enrolling students, in the knowledge that organisations in the supply chain, such as GTSLearning, would not get paid.

Robin Adda, managing director, GTSLearning, said: "we have made approaches to the government but no-one is listening. Our sole communication has been a letter from the Under Secretary of State for Education and Skills reiterating everything that was publicly announced last year. This answer was received on the 18th January 2002, following a letter we sent in December 2001."

"In January 2002, GTSLearning tracked down the individual at the DFES in Sheffield, who was nominated to project manage the 'investigation' of the ILA Providers. GTSLearning shipped two cartons of delivery notes to him, which proved that it had delivered all the learning materials to the registered learners."

GTSLearning then heard from the DFES that payments would be made mid March 2002 to ILA Providers for outstanding training, which could be proved had been delivered and as yet remained unpaid. The ILA Provider, and many others, have still not been paid. In fact, there is no evidence that any payments were made on that date.

"We know the details of all the students who have received our learning materials. We are now considering writing to them to ask for payment, stating that unfortunately the government has not met its obligations and the learning materials they received were never paid for - nor was title passed under the Sale of Goods Act. We advised the DFES that we were considering doing this and they seem indifferent."

"Because our contract was not with the government, but with an approved ILA Provider, we cannot take action directly against the government. We have served a winding up order on the ILA Provider, although if he cannot pay us, that will not resolve our problems."

"It seems that the government is beyond the law. We have a team permanently occupied trying to move this forward - what an indictment on the government's lack of competence, accountability and sheer hypocrisy!"