FE funding changes slated by councils

21 Jul 10
Councils have criticised the latest shake-up of further education funding, claiming it fails to simplify the system introduced in April this year

By Lucy Phillips

21 July 2010

Councils have criticised the latest shake-up of further education funding, claiming it fails to simplify the system introduced in April this year.

Education Secretary Michael Gove wrote to the Local Government Association on Monday, stripping local authorities of their new role in managing grant agreements, financial assurance and audit for 16–19 education. From August 1, FE and sixth-form colleges will instead be funded directly through the new Young People’s Learning Agency. School sixth-forms will continue to be funded by local authorities.

The changes follow the Labour government’s shake-up of 14–19 funding, which came into effect three months ago. This replaced the Learning & Skills Council with the YPLA and the Skills Funding Agency and gave councils responsibility for 14–19 education.

Gove said the changes would cut red tape and streamline funding. ‘We are taking some immediate steps to simplify the systems and tackle head on complexity, wasted costs and over-management of the process by all concerned,’ he wrote in the letter. 

But the LGA said the changes failed to simplify the system. ‘There will be disappointment that this reorganisation of post-16 education follows so swiftly from a previous one, and the latest leaves just as many funding streams and middlemen in place,’ said Shireen Ritchie, chair of the LGA’s children and young people’s board.

Ritchie called for colleges and other FE providers to be funded through one single body, rather than two. Currently, the YPLA distributes funding from the Department for Education and the SFA allocates money from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.  

The coalition has also removed the requirement on local authorities to come together in regional planning groups and is abandoning the previous government’s plans to introduce in-year funding adjustments. Changes will be introduced in 2011/12 so that college and sixth forms are funded on the basis of the previous year’s activity, removing the need for detailed planning by councils.    

The Association of Colleges backed the moves. ‘These changes will be welcomed by colleges as a means by which the funding arrangements for 16–18 year olds can be simplified and in the process costs contained to the benefit of frontline services to students,’ said AoC chief executive Martin Doel.

 

Did you enjoy this article?

AddToAny

Top