18 November 2005
The 13% funding gap between English further education colleges and schools will be reduced and the problems highlighted by Sir Andrew Foster's inquiry into the FE sector will be tackled, Ruth Kelly has vowed.
The education secretary told delegates at the Association of Colleges' annual conference on November 16 that she accepted the gap caused resentment.
She promised to tackle it as part of a broader programme of reform to get to grips with the challenges raised by Foster's 'excellent' report, which he launched at the conference the day before.
Kelly pledged to reduce the gap, based on comparing funding levels for pupils following similar courses, by five percentage points to 8% by 2006/07. That would be achieved by increased investment, changes to funding formulas and the introduction of a minimum funding guarantee for young people at FE colleges from next year.
The gap should narrow further to 5% by 2008, when schools would be put on the same footing as FE colleges and no longer receive cash for pupils who have dropped out. But Kelly gave no timetable for achieving funding parity.
'I feel as strongly as you that the gap is both unfair and an obstacle,' she told the conference in Birmingham. 'I think you will recognise that I can't solve the problem overnight, but I am determined to tackle it as rapidly as we can'.
Kelly indicated that she accepted some of Foster's key recommendations, such as the need to streamline the inspection regime for colleges.
She also gave clear backing to his call for introducing greater competition and allowing failing colleges to be taken over or shut down. But she made it clear that there would be no early decisions on which recommendations would be taken up.
'I am keen that we now take the time to examine carefully his findings and his challenges, his recommendations and their implications. In light of that debate, I intend next spring to set out how we will implement the next phase of reform,' she said.
The AoC gave Kelly's speech a cautious thumbs-up. Julian Gravatt, its director of funding, told Public Finance: 'There is still a bit of a gap between the rhetoric and the reality. While we welcome the clear public acknowledgement of the problem, she didn't give a clear commitment to ending it.'
Barry Lovejoy, head of colleges at trade union Natfhe, said: 'The pledge will not spell the end of colleges being forced to provide education on the cheap. That will only happen when the gap is eliminated.'
PFnov2005
