Colleges in their Communities – Interim Report published Thursday, July 14, 2011 - 14:05

Colleges need greater freedom from over-elaborate funding restrictions and other limitations to achieve their full potential for the benefit of their wider communities.

This is the key finding of the Interim Report from the Independent Commission on Colleges in their Communities which is led by Baroness Sharp of Guildford and supported by NIACE, the 157 Group and the Association of Colleges, published on Friday 15 July 2011.

The Interim Report - A Dynamic Nucleus: colleges at the heart of local communities, has detailed the following findings about colleges in England:

• the funding system is unduly complex;

• too much top management time is consumed by funding complexity;

• colleges have learned to manage the system and to help communities;

• there is no such thing as a national brand;

• there is a need for co-ordination of skills demand at a local level;

• the necessity of acceptance of reform;

• governance structures must change alongside financial reform; and

• many colleges are already embedded in their communities.

The Commission have also produced a shared vision for 2013 which aspires to a further education system with colleges at its heart responsible for and responsive to the needs of all adults and young people, employers and local communities:

• colleges will have a central leadership and co-ordinating role in the funding and regulation of this system as the major public sector infrastructure investment for adult learning and skills;

• in return central government will see greater levels of investment in the system by employers and individuals alike;

• colleges will provide customer focused, accessible and transparent information to employers and individuals to support informed choices;

• communities will feel that colleges are more accountable to them through hearing their voices, responding to them more systematically and speedily through improved transparency; involving them more effectively in joint planning and delivery; and

• there will be simpler financial accountability to the Government's funding agencies but accountability to the local community will also be written into governance.

Baroness Margaret Sharp of Guildford, said:    

"I had little hesitation in agreeing to Chair this Commission having long recognised, supported and admired the substantial contribution that colleges make to society. Each of them is different, faces different challenges and responds in different ways. There is no such thing as a standard FE college but many of them are inspiring institutions. I hope that this Interim Report will stimulate further discussion and debate which can feed into our final report due in November."

Mark Ravenhall, NIACE Director of Policy and Impact, said:

"Colleges are the institutional backbone of local learning eco-systems for adults, working closely with local authorities and independent providers. But this is an eco-system that's constantly evolving. With new funding arrangements colleges need the space to operate beyond their current financial limitations. We hope these initial findings and recommendations will encourage more experts and stakeholders to add their views to the volume of evidence already submitted to the inquiry. We need more people to submit case studies and comment on these recommendations to government and colleges for the benefit of adult learners and the entire community."

Colleges need the space to operate beyond their current financial limitations

Mark Ravenhall, NIACE

Joy Mercer, Director of Policy at the Association of Colleges, said:

"This is the moment to seize the opportunities for Colleges to be freed to do what they do best-work with their communities to deliver what they need to learn the skills for a changing employment landscape and active citizenship. This report starts the journey towards a new agenda where Colleges are trusted partners at the centre of local delivery and innovation.''

Lynne Sedgmore CBE, Executive Director of the 157 Group, said:

"The 157 Group welcomes this interim report and how it emphasises that colleges are already making extensive and powerful contributions in their community but that chiefly, we need more flexibility, particularly in funding mechanisms if our colleges are to continue to flourish as hubs of innovation in their localities. Flexibility in funding and greater freedoms is something that the 157 Group has called for many times before, particularly in our Learning accounts that count policy paper, and in our forthcoming Adult Entitlement policy paper. Now more than ever colleges need the additional freedoms intended by the coalition to enable colleges to make an even more powerful contribution."