Liberata, the company behind severe delays in students' education maintenance allowances, has lost its contract to Capita.

The company blamed for delayed grant payments to thousands of college students has lost its six-year contract, it has just been announced.

Liberata's contract was scrapped by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) five years early after the company failed to pay thousands of teenagers education maintenance allowance (EMA) grants of up to £30 a week to continue studying.

Capita has been appointed by the LSC and will take on all its learner support services, including the EMA and the Adult Learning Grant (ALG).

On November 28, it will take over learner and provider helplines, processing and payments and bring in a new senior management team to oversee the staff and operations in Coventry, Manchester and Darlington processing centres.

Payments will continue and during the transfer period outstanding applications will continue to be processed, the LSC said.

In a statement, the LSC said learners had suffered weeks of delay in receiving payments as a result of Liberata encountering technical difficulties in processing EMA applications.

At one stage the backlog of applications was in excess of 200,000.

It is now at 12,016 and the remaining applications should be cleared within the next few weeks.

But the LSC said a change of supplier was the best way forward regardless.

Mark Haysom, the LSC's chief executive, said: "We have said throughout that it is unacceptable for young people to have their EMA payments delayed.

"Capita has a long history of working on programmes such as EMA and we are delighted they are able to take this contract forward and provide learners with the service they deserve.

"We are working with Liberata and Capita to make the transfer as smooth as possible.

"Although the transfer will not immediately fix all of the helpline and processing problems, it will help us to improve the future service for young people, colleges and learning providers."

The National Union of Students further education spokeswoman, Beth Walker, said the LSC should make sure the remaining backlog is cleared and all back payments are made.

"We fear that many students have been forced to drop out of their courses by the delays and there is an urgent need for the government to conduct a full inquiry into this catastrophic failure."

The shadow schools minister, Nick Gibb, said: "Yet again, Ed Balls' department has presided over the shambolic administration of services that directly impact on children's education.

"If anything, this latest debacle is the most damaging yet as it directly undermines the educational prospects of some of the poorest children in the country."

He demanded to know how much taxpayers' money Liberata had been paid and whether it would be forced to pay it all back.

"But most importantly we need to know when the vulnerable students who have been so badly let down by this fiasco will receive the money they are entitled to," Gibb said.

The EMA contract is the second in education sector the government has been forced to terminate this year.

The US firm ETS Europe lost its £156m five-year contract to handle the Sats exams in August after test results were delayed. Capita also took over the contract.

In 2004, the National Audit Office blamed Capita for the near collapse of the Criminal Records Bureau when it was launched, causing chaos in schools who could not vet staff.

Around 600,000 hard-up teenagers signed up to the EMA scheme, which was designed to help them carry on with their education after age 16.

The contract to pay the allowance and other payments is currently worth more than £1m a month.

• Further education
• Education policy
• Capita

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The most vulnerable children are being failed by "patently inadequate" standards of care in the networks of schools, care workers and children's homes established to protect them from abuse, according to the chief inspector of schools.

Councils have systematically failed to learn from the mistakes made in dozens of the most serious cases of child abuse and schools and health workers are still failing to pick up signs of child abuse. It comes amidst intense public concern after the death of 17-month old Baby P in Haringey who died from 50 injuries despite being in regular contact with child protection officers and medics.

In the first annual report from Ofsted since it took responsibility for inspecting children protection facilities and practices, the watchdog raises urgent concerns about the system of serious case reviews, which are launched in the worst cases of child abuse to help councils learn from mistakes made in their child protection teams.

Between April 2007, when Ofsted assumed responsibility for assessing child protection procedures, and August this year local authorities reported 424 serious incidents including 282 child deaths, 136 of serious harm and six the outcome of which are unknown. One in four involved babies under the age of one. Of 92 serious case reviews conducted, 38 were rated inadequate and 34 just satisfactory – a rating Ofsted says is not good enough.

This led to serious delays in judging what went wrong in the child protection system in "almost all" cases, the report warns. In one case it took a local authority four years to conduct a single serious case review during which time other children could have come to harm. The report warns that some of the most serious cases of child abuse involving child deaths are going unreported by local authorities. One in four local authorities didn't report a single case.

Gilbert said: "This report leaves me encouraged by the recognition that so much is going well for so many children, young people and adult learners; but frustrated that there is still too much that is patently inadequate and too many instances where the rate of improvement is unacceptably slow. Too many vulnerable children are still being let down by the system and we are failing to learn from the worst cases of abuse."

Referring to the case of the death of Baby P in Haringey afterwards, she said: "I wish I could guarantee that such a case would never happen again. I can't give that guarantee. Everyone working in child protection has to stop, take stock and look at what they are doing."

The symptoms of child abuse are still being missed by "front-line" staff such as teachers and health workers who are still too ready to "accept at face value" signs of abuse, she said.

Some 8% of children's homes are "shockingly" inadequate with concerns about children's safety in centres that are failing to vet and train staff properly. Bullying was going unchallenged in 7% of settings. Procedures designed to ensure that all staff working with children talk to each other – a key recommendation that was supposed to be implemented after the death of Victoria Climbie – are poor in many areas. "Consequently, necessary actions may not be taken to reduce the risks to children of sexual exploitation and drug or alcohol misuse," the report says.

The report, which also covers education from nurseries to schools and colleges, finds that although the number of inadequate schools has decreased since last year, there was a "stubborn and persistent" problem of underperformance in secondaries where 9% were judged inadequate.

Gilbert said: "There is a strong link across every sector between deprivation and poor-quality provision. This means that children and families already experiencing relative deprivation face further inequity in the quality of care and support for their welfare, learning and development. In short, if you are poor, you are more likely to receive poor services: disadvantage compounds disadvantage."

Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, said: "This OFSTED report underlines what we have been saying – the education system is failing poorer children. The gap between the privileged and disadvantaged is not being closed. That is why a Conservative government would shift resources to spend more money on the education of pupils from more deprived backgrounds."

Jim Knight, the schools minister, said: "There is a lot of good news in this report for frontline staff who are working hard to improve children's lives, to help them learn and achieve, and to keep them safe. But as we set out in the Children's Plan, we won't be satisfied until every school and every service is meeting the standards set by the best."

Beverley Hughes, the children's minister, added: "I am pleased that the large majority of children's homes and social care services are doing well. However, I am very concerned that the report says that staff in some services are not equipped to recognise and respond to signs of abuse and neglect. Everybody working with children has a clear duty to keep them safe – there are no excuses for ignorance."

• Child protection
• Childcare
• Social care
• Children
• Social work
• Baby P
• Secondary schools
• Primary schools
• Ofsted
• Michael Gove

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Colleges will get greater freedom to choose what they teach if the Conservatives get back into government, they were promised today.

The government should give further education the sort of leeway universities get, and trust it to respond to local needs, said David Willetts, shadow secretary for skills.

He promised college principals an end to the frequent policy switches that Labour had forced on them. "We trust further education colleges to serve their local communities - they have deep roots there," he told the Association of Colleges (AoC) annual conference in Birmingham.

Though careful to avoid spending commitments, Willetts pledged to use £100m of Labour's Train to Gain budget on addressing the Neets problem (youngsters not in education, employment or training).

The Tories would use a further £100m from the same source to "kick start" adult education, and repair some of the damage suffered with the loss of 1.5 million publicly-funded course places.

"What's happened to adult education is a disaster," Willetts said. "It's extraordinary that having built it up, the government has demolished it in the last four years."

The Tories want to preserve the autonomy from local government that they granted colleges in 1993. "I don't believe that further education colleges should revert to being dependent on local authority funding."

The government has ruled that colleges will be funded by their local councils from 2010.

The Conservatives would restore a funding agency for further education. Unlike the Learning and Skills Council, this would not have responsibility for school sixth forms, which would be funded by local authorities.

"We are sometimes told that further education is not sufficiently responsive. My view is that that's the opposite of the truth. If anything colleges have been too responsive."

Under Labour, colleges have been subjected to frequent policy U-turns. Under a Conservative government, colleges would be required to draw up a plan of what they would teach, having consulted their local communities.

"The plans would be submitted to the funding agency. Colleges would be funded to deliver them, and assessed on their performance."

Some central oversight would be needed because public money was involved but colleges would be much freer to respond to local demand.

"Funding of FE colleges should not depend on the production of paper qualifications," Willetts said. "Skills are not the same as qualifications."

The serious Neets problem would not be solved by insisting youngsters get level 2 NVQs as a funding condition. If a college could attract disaffected youngsters by allowing them, for instance, to work on motorbike engines, that could qualify for cash support.

Get these young Neets interested in something first, and then think about more structured training, he said.

• Colleges
• Further education
• David Willetts
• Conservatives
• Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation

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A university rugby team is suspended from fixtures after a player vomited on a bus.

Ofsted's annual report says too many poor children are further disadvantaged by "inadequate services" including schools.

More than 30,000 pupils finish primary school in England with the maths ability of a seven-year-old, a report says.

A recent survey showed many Brits had a woeful grasp of the UK and the world's geography. Can you do any better? Here are ten questions to try

How many countries make up Great Britain?

If you know the answer, you're among the precious few in the UK that do.

A study to raise awareness of geography found that two thirds of people (65%) mistakenly believe Britain is made up of four countries, rather than the correct three: England, Scotland and Wales.

Half of the 2,000 people surveyed (51%) wrongly believe English is the most spoken language in the world, as opposed to Mandarin Chinese. And one in 10 think Everest is Britain's highest mountain.

Struggling with the "how many countries" question, 6% said Britain was made up of five countries, 3% thought one and 2% chose two.

Yet asked what profession they would most like to be out of list of six, 23% of respondents said explorer, compared with doctor (22%), painter (16%), teacher (15%), journalist (14%) and banker (11%).

Geographic technology company, Esri (UK), commissioned the survey to coincide with geography awareness week and geographic information systems (GIS) day.

Dr Rita Gardner, director of the Royal Geographical Society, said: "The poll raises some questions about how engaged people are with the many geographical issues in the wider world and about geographical factual knowledge.

"Good geographical knowledge and skills are vital for all of us, as responsible citizens, if we are to fully understand the nature of change in the world's people, places and environments."

Esri's community programmes manager, Angela Baker, said it was remarkable how few people knew simple facts like how many countries make up Great Britain.

"Geography helps us make sense of our local surroundings and the world's bigger challenges like climate change, war, energy and poverty," she said.

"The survey shows the nation knows less than expected about the world we live in."

"New technologies in the classroom are helping modernise geography – making it more relevant to children and helping them develop new marketable skills."

GIS is used to create interactive digital maps and to understand spatial information. Since September it has been part of the curriculum at key stage 3, GCSE and A-level, with pupils using it to question geographical data and study relationships and patterns.

• How well do you know the world? Take our quiz

• Geography and environment studies
• Schools
• Climate change

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The company blamed for delayed grant payments to thousands of college students is likely to have its six-year contract terminated by the end of the week.

According to reports, Liberata's contract will be scrapped by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) five years early after the company failed to pay thousands of teenagers education maintenance allowance (EMA) grants of up to £30 a week to continue studying.

The EMA contract will be the second in the field of education the government has been forced to terminate this year.

The US firm ETS Europe lost its £156m five-year contract to handle the Sats exams in August after test results were delayed.

Around 600,000 hard-up teenagers signed up to the scheme, which was designed to help them carry on with their education after age 16.

The contract to pay the allowance and other payments is currently worth more than £1m a month.

A spokeswoman for Liberata refused to comment on any of the details of the case.

"As a private company, it is Liberata's policy not to comment on rumour and speculation regarding either itself or its clients.

"We can disclose that we continue to work closely with the LSC and other government bodies to resolve the situation with the LSC and its EMA student payments."

She added that Liberata continues to provide outsourcing services to public and private sector clients and would ensure they were unaffected by the LSC contract situation.

"Liberata is continuously focusing on improving the quality and efficiency of its service offerings to all of its clients across the public and private sector," she said.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "Liberata has been performing badly and the LSC has contingency plans in place but at this moment no contract has been signed or unsigned."

The Association of School and College Leaders' deputy general secretary, Martin Ward, said: "This is welcome news and the right response when a contractor fails to deliver.

"The colleges and schools that have seen students' education put at risk by Liberata's mistakes will undoubtedly feel some sense of vindication. However, it will not help those students still struggling to make ends meet because they have not yet received their payments. Sorting out the problems still remaining from this year must be the priority.

"The government must do all it can to help ensure that these colleges and their students do not end up out of pocket. Colleges should not have to pay for the failures of a government-appointed contractor."

The Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, David Laws, said government action was "long overdue".

He said: "The administration of the EMA has been an utter shambles and follows the earlier problems that the education department had with ETS, the contractor for the key stage tests.

"Ed Balls must explain why the government appears to have been employing contractors who haven't displayed the basic competence to manage their responsibilities.

"This chaotic situation has led to real problems for many students. We urgently need to know who is going to take over the contract and how the government is going to get back the money already paid to Liberata."

• Further education
• Student finance

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Ofsted's annual report raises concerns that many reviews of child abuse cases are inadequate.

Too many schools are providing education that is "patently inadequate" and people in the most disadvantaged areas of the country are being let down the most, according to the chief inspector of schools.

Overall, children's services spanning childcare, schools colleges and children's homes are good or outstanding, says the Ofsted annual report, but a significant minority are being let down by inadequate provision.

The report, published today, also highlights failures in child protection systems, under intense scrutiny since the death of Baby P in Haringey. The report says that 8% of children's homes were judged inadequate at their most recent inspection.

It highlights failures of staff to identify child abuse and judges 38 out of 92 serious case reviews, conducted after the death or serious injury of a child, as inadequate.

Between April 2007 and August 2008, Ofsted received notifications from local authorities of 424 serious incidents, relating to 282 deaths of children, 136 incidents of significant harm or injuries, and six incidents of which the outcome is not yet known.

Four in 10 incidents involved babies under the age of one.

There are often long delays in producing review findings, limiting what can be learned from them, and improvements are not always made as a result.

In problem areas, staff lack experience and are poorly supervised, Ofsted says.

Looked-after children's education attainment also remains "unacceptably low" and slower than for their peers.

"The relationship between poverty and outcomes for young people is stark," the report warns.

"The poor outcomes for young people living in the most disadvantaged areas are seen at every stage of the education and care sectors."

There is a higher proportion of good or outstanding childcare and early education than ever before, with nursery education of particularly high quality.

But people living in deprived areas have access to fewer good childcare settings.

And while the attainment of disadvantaged children and young people has risen, so have standards nationally. Children from poor families are missing out.

Services for disadvantaged children are poor, and across England, the opportunities available to them fall well short of those available to others, Gilbert said.

Despite effort and investment, the educational attainment of looked after children and their levels of participation in post-16 education, training and employment remain "unacceptably poor".

Gilbert said: "There is a strong link across every sector between deprivation and poor quality provision. This means that children and families already experiencing relative deprivation face further inequity in the quality of care and support for their welfare, learning and development.

"In short, if you are poor you are more likely to receive poor services: disadvantage compounds disadvantage."

She added: "There is still too much that is patently inadequate and too many instances where the rate of improvement is unacceptably slow. Too many vulnerable children are still being let down by the system and we are failing to learn from the worst cases of abuse."

Ofsted found two-thirds of state schools to be good or outstanding – up five percentage points since 2005-06.

A total of 9% of secondaries and 4% of primaries are inadequate.

Three out of the 10 academies inspected this year were judged outstanding, five good and two satisfactory.

Two-thirds of children's social care services were also judged good or outstanding as well as over 70% of further education colleges.

Secure accommodation for children and young people continues to improve and behaviour is better.

Initial teacher-training programmes are designed well and trainees are highly motivated and enthusiastic.

But the report suggests that "all is not well" despite the improvements.

One in five 11-year-olds transfer to secondary schools without the expected skills in English and maths.

And more than half of secondary age pupils leave compulsory education without grades A*-C in five subjects at GCSE, including English and mathematics, compared with two-thirds a decade ago.

There is an attainment gap between children on free school meals and others.

And the progress of children whose first language is not English remains "uneven".

The GCSE achievement gap between black, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and white pupils has narrowed.

But poverty has a greater impact on white British and black Caribbean secondary pupils.

And the attainment of poor white British boys remains particularly low, blighting their opportunities to participate in higher education.

The Liberal Democrats schools spokesman, David Laws, said: "Some of the issues being raised may have been relevant in the Baby P case.

"Ed Balls must explain why action on these matters has not already been taken, given that Ofsted is repeating earlier criticisms."

He added that a third of schools failing to give pupils a good education was "unacceptable".

The shadow children's secretary, Michael Gove, said: "This Ofsted report underlines what we have been saying – the education system is failing poorer children.

"The gap between the privileged and disadvantaged is not being closed. That is why a Conservative government would shift resources to spend more money on the education of pupils from more deprived backgrounds."

Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "Children from deprived backgrounds are three times more likely to underachieve than their peers from well-off backgrounds. This is a fact, not an excuse.

"It is vital, therefore, that this gap narrows, but it can't be achieved by lambasting schools in the toughest areas. That simply creates demoralisation and discourages committed staff.

She urged the chief inspector to outline the support schools need in the toughest areas, including how to encourage staff to work in those schools and how to provide them with the necessary additional resources.

Dr John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the report painted a picture of "an improving system against a background of rising expectations placed on schools and colleges".

He praised schools, colleges and their leaders for improving standards – particularly behaviour in a society where pupils have more freedom outside school.

"Demanding high standards of behaviour is never easy and schools need strong support from parents if they are to be successful in this," he said.

• Ofsted
• Child protection
• Social exclusion
• Schools
• Primary schools
• Secondary schools

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Oxford University should take firm action against the rugby boys using crude racial stereotypes as party themes

Plans to give free school meals to Scots pupils in the first three years of primary school are likely to pass a crucial test.

Obituary: Historian of the Roman empire and authority on Polybius

Response: Many students take work placements in Britain, earning money and gaining contacts, says Chris Ward

Nearly a quarter of 11-year-olds are failing to reach the expected level in maths at the end of primary school, according to a report from the National Audit Office that says the Labour government's drive to improve the nation's mathematical skills has "levelled off".

Girls are falling behind boys and need particular attention, the report says. Some 6% of 11-year-olds - a total of 34,000 - have skills worse than the average seven-year-old. The report suggests the £200m-a-year drive to improve maths in primary schools is stalling in part as a result of teachers failing to spot children falling behind because they are not doing enough high-quality testing.

Meeting a 2011 target of 85% of 11-year-olds making the grade in maths will be a "considerable challenge", it warns. Last year 77% of pupils achieved a level four, the expected result for their age, in Sats.

Ministers insisted plans to target those at risk of falling behind with specialist and one-to-one teaching were already in place, but the report says thousands of pupils are arriving at secondary school without the basic skills they need to progress. Of pupils who did not reach the expected performance level in maths and English by the end of primary school, only 3% achieved the government's target of five GCSEs at A*-C including mathematics and English when they reached 16, the report says.

There are also gaps in achievement between boys and girls, children of different ethnicities and different socio-ecocomic groups. The report says: "Pupils from Chinese and Indian ethnic groups do consistently better than white pupils. Pupils from black African, black Caribbean, Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic groups do significantly less well, though the gap has narrowed in recent years.

"There is a very large gap in attainment between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers. At key stage 2 the difference is currently 20 percentage points, with only a small narrowing of the gap over the past three years."

Edward Leigh, the chairman of the committee of public accounts, said: "The bottom line is that improvements in mathematics results since 2000 have been unimpressive. And, most worrying of all, nearly a quarter of all primary school children are not reaching the levels they need to in basic maths before moving on to secondary school."

Sarah McCarthy-Fry, the schools minister, said: "Maths is one of our key priorities and that's why we raised results from only 59% of 11-year-olds achieving the expected standard in 1998 to 77% in 2007, a big jump. It's true that in recent years the rate of improvement has slowed - we're impatient to do even better and that's why we are taking further decisive action to help all children reach their potential."

• Mathematics
• Schools

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Colleges in England might be funded on the long-term jobs they help people into rather than qualifications achieved.

The firm that delivers the delay-hit education maintenance allowance is about to lose its contract.

Colleges will get an extra £500m next year and greater freedom to teach what they want in the face of the worsening economic situation.

To help people get back into work, colleges and training companies will get public cash for more basic levels of training than are presently permitted, John Denham, secretary of state for innovation skills and universities, said.

This will increase the total further education budget to £12.1bn next year.

Ministers will expect colleges to show ingenuity and innovation in the training courses that they devise to help the unemployed, he told the Association of Colleges (AoC) annual conference.

"When someone is facing redundancy or, often these days, they are let go at the end of a contract, they need to know that colleges will be there to help them with advice and support as well as education and training," Denham said.

College principals cautiously welcomed the relaxation of funding rules, but said government now needed to make it easier to move money between provision for adults and 16-19 year olds.

In recent years, the government has increasingly narrowed the sorts of training that qualifies for public cash.

Most money has been funnelled towards level two qualifications – the equivalent of five good GCSEs – and basic literacy and numeracy.

Now colleges will be able to claim for training schemes below level one and they will not have to carry an approved qualification, Denham said.

"I want to free up mainstream capacity and funds from within the system so that you are able to help," he said.

Denham re-affirmed the government's commitment to its Train to Gain programme, which applies to people in employment.

The budget will be increased by £130m to £925m and there will be a special £30m fund to help them use it.

Once a jobless "learner" had got a job they would be expected to continue training towards a qualification approved under Train to Gain.

Denham paid tribute to colleges for the work they do that is not publicly funded, in particular, initiatives to counter gun and knife crime.

• Further education
• Adult literacy

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