NIACE welcomes additional spending for FE in England Wednesday, December 5, 2012 - 16:10

NIACE welcomes the Chancellor’s announcement today, in his Autumn Statement, of an additional £270 million to fund improvements in further education colleges. At a time of austerity, when departmental resource budgets will be cut by 1% next year and 2% in the year after, any increases must be seen as a vote of confidence in the sector.

Elsewhere in the statement, the Chancellor announced that, from April 2015, the Government will place more of the funding that currently goes to skills into a single pot - along with transport, housing and back-to-work funding - which Local Enterprise Partnerships can bid for.

Commenting on this proposal, NIACE Principal Advocacy Officer, Alastair Thomson, said:

"Exactly which skills budget lines will be pooled will need some thinking-through. We look forward to the Government implementing Lord Heseltine’s recommendations alongside those of other reviews, such as that recently undertaken by Doug Richard into apprenticeships. Government has to balance place-based approaches with sectoral and industrial considerations. In addition we’ll have to see exactly what other departments of state, such as Work and Pensions, are ready to devolve. We very much hope that Matthew Hancock, the Minister for Skills, will be able to give sector leaders some early indications of thinking when the FE Reform and Performance Board meets at BIS tomorrow.

"What we have is a better sense now of the direction of travel over the next six months. We can expect a revised coalition agreement in January, a possible refreshing of the skills strategy to take account of the Chancellor’s statement, the 2013 budget and then a government spending review. Our challenge in NIACE is to demonstrate the public value of spending on adult learning and ensure that there is, both nationally and locally, a stronger connection made between economic growth, social development and the learning needs and aspirations of all citizens which will contribute to a stronger society and economy."