More details of changes to FE in England Monday, December 20, 2010 - 15:31

In response to the details published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), NIACE Principal Policy Officer, Alastair Thomson, said:

"Together with the Skills Funding Agency's Guidance Note 6, a useful presentation from BIS sets out clearly how the Government will be reforming English Further Education, following the Skills Strategy."

"NIACE is pleased that the wider benefits of learning are well-recognised and that adult learning will underpin the growth and the Big Society agenda. We are also pleased to see that levies and licenses to practice are being considered as ways of ensuring employers invest in their workforce."

"There are real challenges ahead though. The Treasury remains sceptical about the value of community based adult learning and the safeguarded budget needs to be defended as it is reformed in order to maintain a degree of curriculum breadth."

"The fall in anticipated learner numbers funded by Government is regrettable, but inevitable given the funding review's allocations. NIACE will be working hard to ensure that the most vulnerable are not the casualties of the changes as a result of the ending of uplift funding for most basic skills, the changes to fee remission eligibility and the changes to ESOL."