ADULT learners and apprentices are being failed by Wiltshire Council’s “inadequate” service, inspectors have found.

An Ofsted report published on Thursday criticised the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, for learners in the county.

Learning in Wiltshire, the council’s adult education service, provides community and family learning, as well as apprenticeships.

Managers of the scheme were said not to have “acted swiftly enough to identify the decline in the quality of the programmes offered” or to have put interventions in place to raise standards of learning.

Ofsted also stated that managers, teachers and assessors do not plan lessons, courses or apprenticeships to a standard high enough that learners can achieve their full potential beyond basic qualification requirements.

The report said adult learners attendance required improvement, and that most were making slow progress, not monitored well enough by staff.

Learners on community and family courses do not develop necessary skills to progress to further education or employment and “many apprentices who are able are not supported to develop their skills above the minimum required to pass their qualifications”.

And the range of courses on offer was “too narrow”.

The report did praise the service’s effective safeguarding, noting that rare incidents of bullying were appropriately investigated.

But a scathing summary stated: “Managers are not sufficiently aware of, or taking effective action to improve, the ineffective teaching and learning”.

Wiltshire Council said it took “all inspections and feedback about its services extremely seriously” and had acknowledged Ofsted’s findings.

It said the inspection focused on a “very small” adult learning service delivering training to 127 apprentices and 90 learners in the community, but it was important the feedback “drives improvement in this area”.

A spokesman said: “The council is an advocate for apprenticeships and in the last three years has supported local businesses to employ more than 6,500 apprentices across the county – many of which have helped local businesses to grow and retain the skills they need. Many apprentices are now pursuing fruitful career paths, and the council will continue to work with businesses to identify opportunities for apprenticeships across the county to support the local economy and the provision of council services.”