‘Significant concerns’

The move left the college unable to produce accurate figures for financial transactions, leading to “significant concerns” about the integrity of the college’s financial records, which contributed to an overspend of £1.3m.

College CEO Andy Marsh said in a statement that it had now addressed its previous financial problems.

“We have introduced stringent new procedures to stabilise our financial processes and made further progress by enhancing the college’s financial controls, including building greater resilience and expertise at board, executive and operational levels,” he added.

Computer Weekly reported in July 2025 that the NAO found the college failed to manage the risks of the project, and did not address known defects before going live with its new accounting systems.

There was a failure to segregate financial report data held by the Home Office and the college, and the problem remained unresolved during testing and “go-live”, leading to “potential inaccuracies” in financial reporting, the NAO found. Issues with data conversion and migration were also not resolved, creating further risks to the integrity of financial data.

The college had failed to check on a “line by line” basis that the transactions on the SAP systems had been accurately and completely transferred to Metis, an outsourced service shared with other government departments, and was unable to obtain “a significant amount of information” required from its 2023–24 financial audit.

Contract issues

The Home Office’s contact with SCCL did not require the service provider to hand over the payroll information the college needed for its 2023–24 audit, delaying the information required by auditors to complete their work by four months.

The problems were exacerbated because the college lacked people with the right technical and financial skills. It had only one member of staff with knowledge of the SAP accounting system, who went on an extended leave of absence, and the board member overseeing the accounting team was not a qualified accountant.

Marsh added that the National Audit Office acknowledged the improvements the college has made this year.

“The auditor stated that: ‘For 2024 to 2025, the college has successfully produced a set of auditable financial statements, which is a significant achievement from a difficult starting position.’ This progress represents a crucial step in the college’s financial recovery and is a notable achievement given our challenging starting point,” he said.

“In 2023, we encountered major challenges with our accounts, caused by the introduction of a new finance and HR system. The auditor’s disclaimer on the 2024 to 2025 accounts relates solely to these previous financial problems, which have now been addressed.”

The college described this year’s audit as the first step in a three-year audit recovery plan. It remained “on trajectory” to restore a fully unqualified audit opinion in 2026–27, according to its published accounts.

The college said it had conducted a lessons learned exercise and undertaken best practices training with the NAO, in addition to appointing a chief financial officer and director of delivery.

It addressed 40 technical and systems issues identified by the NAO, and is continuing to work through the list with the support of the Home Office.

The college also worked with SSCL to ensure that previous problems with not having “timely access” to audit information – particularly payroll – were not repeated.