Background

FRP’s Forensic Services team was engaged by a government agency in the education sector to undertake an investigation following several complaints in relation to a learning provider. The complaints centred around students being liable for student loans despite either not attending the course or only attending for a short period of time.

The team were instructed to investigate if there was a wider issue than the reported complaints and whether the government agency had any justification to recover amounts potentially over-claimed by the learning provider, and if so, the potential quantification of any claim.

Action

FRP reviewed loan funded course application data from the government agency and determined our sample testing methodology. We were able to test a random sample of students and assess the attendance evidence given by the learning provider. As a result of our testing, we were able to identify key pieces of evidence and dates in a student’s learning lifecycle that would trigger loan payments to the learning provider. This enabled us to highlight students where the attendance evidence did not support the loan payments made to the learning provider.

Outcome

FRP provided a written report outlining key findings. Our report highlighted courses where the loan payments could not be supported by attendance evidence and as a result the learning provider returned funds back to the student loan provider. We also highlighted key areas of risk with regards to potential future complaints.