‘I signed up with the course because I wanted to do something with my life, and wanted to become something,’ Adam tells me.
Aged 18, Adam says he had saved up for years to get the money to enroll on an electrical training course with Options Skills. Even then, his dad had to help him make up the difference.
‘It was a lot of money for me to save up,’ he added. ‘The money I spent was a big loss, but I wanted to invest in myself.’
‘Now, its all gone.’
The trade training course provider, which offers qualifications such as NVQs for budding gas engineers, electricians and plumbers, went into administration without warning, leaving its students unable to finish the courses they had paid for.
Tuition: Options Skills offered private trade skills courses in London, Birmingham and Manchester
On 18 March, Adam was one of many who found out via a Facebook group that Options Skills had closed its doors.
Some students received text messages the night before, informing them that they shouldn’t attend their classes the next day. But for the majority, word of mouth was the only source of information.
Options Skills has four training centres, covering London, Birmingham and Manchester, and hundreds of students are on its books. A Facebook support group for those suffering because of the closure of the business has almost 700 members.
The Electrical Contractors’ Association said more than 800 students have come forward to say they have been affected.
‘I don’t know if I’m going to get my money back to be honest,’ Adam told This is Money. He says he had to pay £6,000 upfront for his NVQ level three electrical installation course.
‘There’s not really been much communication, we’ve just been left there… we don’t know what’s going on.’
A few days after students received the news that Options Skills has shut down, the firm’s website began to display a message that it had stopped trading.
‘It is with regret to note that Options Skills Limited has ceased to trade, this has been caused by circumstances beyond the directors’ control,’ it read. ‘The directors have engaged insolvency practitioners from Bebgies Traynor who will be contacting students and creditors over the next few days as to the position.’
When approached by This is Money, Options Skills said the insolvency company Begbies Traynor was now acting on its behalf. Begbies Traynor told This is Money it was unable to comment on the situation.
However, it confirmed that it was uncertain whether there would be ‘sufficient realisations’ to enable money to be paid back to unsecured creditors, the category under which the students fall.
New starter: Options Skills went into administration before Nay was able to start his course, but he had already paid in full
Following the closure, students like Adam have been left unsure of what the collapse of the business means for them, and the money and time that they have invested in their learning.
Students were initially left with no ability to access records of the work they had completed, meaning that they would have nothing to show for their training. Even now that they can access this information, it might not be transferrable to other training providers, meaning that they might have no choice but to start from scratch.
EAL, the awarding organisation for these trade courses, said in a statement: ‘Every effort will be made to ensure work can be credited in line with the requirements of the relevant qualifications. This is a complex process – please do not be panicked into signing up for any new training package and refer to the guidance issued by EAL and The Electrotechnical Skills Partnership (TESP) which will be kept updated.’
Even though I paid the full amount of money, I can’t call them, their website is down. I’m lost to be honest.
Former student Nay
It said it was ‘actively driving conversations with the regulator, administrator, and other relevant parties,’ and ‘diligently working towards what the appropriate next steps will be.’
Some students, like Nay, hadn’t even started their courses before they were told not to attend classes, but they had already paid their fees upfront.
Nay, who first came to the UK as a refugee, said he paid £7,000 in December for his course which was set to start on 25 March, having worked as a chef for years in order to save up the necessary funds to become an electrician.
‘I left my job in January to give myself some time before the course, I was looking forward to it so much,’ he said.
‘Even though I paid the full amount of money, I can’t call them, their website is down. I’m lost to be honest.’
Nay has been forced to collect money from friends and family in order to move forward on a course with another provider. So far, despite having disputed his payments, he has only been able to get back his £250 deposit.
‘It’s heartbreaking,’ he added.
Another student, Faraz, said that after paying £7,500 to start a course around two years ago as an investment in his future, he has no choice but to wait and see what happens.
The courses are completed at the students’ own pace, and some study over several years alongside their day jobs.
‘All the hard work that I’ve put in for those exams and the portfolio… all the sacrifices I made, I wasn’t going out with my friends, I wasn’t spending time with my family. I was spending time on trying to revise for these exams, and at the end it was for nothing,’ he said.
‘Do I go with the different provider? How much money do I need to invest to do it again?’
In fact, Faraz said the cracks were starting to show long before Options Skills went bust, and it stopped him from making the progress he was hoping for.
‘Once I made the payment it was like their behaviour just changed,’ he said. ‘On the first day the lecturer said that what I had been told by the salespeople isn’t actually offered.’
According to Faraz, this meant that his class contained people like him, with no experience, up to people who were already working in the electrical industry, despite them initially having been offered different course levels.
Having completed the first stage of his course, Options Skills found Faraz a job placement which they said would allow him to complete his portfolio and open up new employment opportunities.
In reality, Faraz told me, the placement was barely related to what he was learning at Options Skills, and his portfolio has suffered as a result.
Insolvent: Options Skills announced its closure via a statement on its web page
He said: ‘Sixty to 70 per cent of the time, what I’m doing has got nothing to do with my portfolio,’ he said. ‘The most difficult thing is that nobody really wants to take me on, because they want qualified people with more experience.
‘All the other electrical companies are just telling me that my experience is not relevant to them.’
And the problems that students have reported don’t stop there.
Matt, whose name has been changed, said: ‘They were just a nightmare… they weren’t helpful’.
Already an electrician, Matt was completing the course in order to get his NVQ Level 3 and ‘gold card’ which allows him to do unsupervised work. As such, he was doing the course alongside his job in his spare time.
‘Everything just took forever,’ he said.
Matt paid £4,450 for his course, and since the collapse of Options Skills has found another provider that will provide a similar offering for almost half the price.
Another student, Aamir, told us that after completing his exams more quickly than average, he asked how to progress with his portfolio – a question that was left unanswered for two months.
‘At one point it took 47 working days for me to receive feedback,’ he says.
He added that there were no guidelines for how long it should take for work to be marked and returned.
Unhappy with the service, Aamir asked for a refund for the £8,500 he had paid for his course. This, he added, was also strange, as some of his classmates told him they had only paid £7,500.
Something on this scale, with so many people affected across the UK, hopefully it triggers something better
‘I went through the terms and conditions, saw their complaints procedure, and I followed it step by step, and I still got ignored,’ he said.
Aamir added: ‘The public education system rules are very stringent, and there’s very strict guidelines of what you can and can’t do.
‘I think there needs to be that sort of level of security in the private sector, where people are using their own money as well.’
Aamir also highlighted that there were a number of students from Hong Kong on Options Skills’ courses, whom he says were not proficient enough in English to do the work required. The aptitude screening tests they carried out were insufficient and could have been completed by someone else as they were not monitored, he said.
‘I feel like they have definitely been taken advantage of,’ Aamir told This is Money.
Even without the evident inadequacies of Options Skills’ communication, training provision and ability to deliver on the promises it made to its students, questions still remain as to why the firm was able to collapse despite students paying through the nose for their courses.
According to Companies House, the directors of Options Skills Ltd incorporated a new firm, Options Trade Skills Ltd, in November last year. The directors had previously also run a company called Options Skills (London) Ltd, which was dissolved in 2019.
In fact, according to the Electrical Contractors’ Association, Options Skills may have been mis-selling its products.
In a statement on its website, the ECA said: ‘Options Skills was one of a number of training providers selling expensive packages of qualifications, many of which are not required for qualified status but give the impression of being essential to become a “professional electrician”.
‘Concern has been growing about this practice and the fallout from Options Skills’ collapse must be a wake up call for industry and the awarding bodies who license these providers.’
The students that have lost out, with many of them having paid via bank transfers, are still waiting to hear news of whether they can expect to get anything back from the firm.
For these students, who have invested so much their future, the coming months are looking increasingly bleak. Whether or not he can reclaim his money, Aamir hopes that something good can at least come from this.
‘Something on this scale, with so many people affected across the UK, hopefully it triggers something better,’ he told me.
‘The main thing is making sure that there is justice, I don’t know how people can get away with that,’ Aamir said. ‘It’s a lot of money, and its all gone somewhere.’
