The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (the Department) has failed to learn lessons from past policies such as Individual Learning Accounts. It failed to heed warnings from organisations such as the Higher Education Funding Council and University and College Union. The Department allowed the rapid expansion of support for students attending private Higher Education providers. The Department allowed £3.84 million of public money to be given to ineligible EU students in the form of student loans and grants. Furthermore the Department has been unable to quantify how much money has been lost when it has funded students who have failed to attend, or failed to complete courses, or were not proficient in the English language, or were not entered for qualifications, or where courses themselves were poorly taught. The Department took over a year to tighten up some of its procedures to control public expenditure more effectively.
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