A GOVERNMENT decision to withdraw funding for an adult learning scheme means a new Tavistock firm will have to put expansion plans on hold.

Janet Mashford, who set up Solo Computing 4 Individuals Ltd, a computer training business, at the Tindle Centre in August this year, said the scheme, the Individual Learning Account, funded £200 towards a £260 year-long course.

'The Government decided to put a total stop to it because some people were trawling for students and not giving them quality training,' she said.

Her plans to buy her own property to set up a centre were on hold as a result.

Funding was available for NVQs, but as these were work-based they were not suitable for her students, who were mostly mature and not in employment, the oldest being eighty.

Mrs Mashford said she would still consider people who could not afford to pay, as she did not wish to deprive anyone of the chance to learn. She is currently investigating alternative sources of funding.

'It's a shame they have closed the scheme, but it was done for the right reasons and will be a good thing in the long-term,' she said.

David Stanbury, who runs the Tindle Centre, is also the director of the Enterprise Tamar Centre in Launceston — which provides IT courses over a wide area including West Devon and South East Cornwall.

'The scheme has been tremendously successful. We have geared ourselves up to cope with the extra demand — taking on extra staff and re-equipping — only for it to be ended overnight,' he said.

'A major chunk of our funding has gone.

'Effectively the innocent — including the students — are being affected by the misdeeds of the others,' he said.

A spokesman for the Individual Learning Account centre said ILAs — which funded up to 80 per cent of the cost of further learning courses — were being withdrawn from December 7.

Those already with ILA cards could enrol for courses up to that date, but no new applications for accounts were being taken.

West Devon and Torridge MP John Burnett said he very much supported ILAs, but when the Government thought up the scheme it 'didn't think them through properly' and as a result they had been 'beset with fraud'.