THROUGH his trademark clip-on microphone, LSC chief executive John Harwood has promised conference audiences around the country that his organisation will respond better to local needs. So, how responsive has it been?
The 47 local LSCs are smaller, and theoretically closer to the learners on the ground, than the old regional offices of the Further Education Funding Council. The existence of a local initiative fund, which can be spent with relative freedom from the LSC’s Coventry HQ, means there is cash to back local action.
The first major test came with Cammell Laird, the Merseyside shipyard, which went into receivership last year, throwing the fortunes of its modern apprentices into uncertainty.
Their training organisation, the Laird Foundation, is a separate entity to the yard, but its trainees relied heavily on the yard for hands-on experience and employment. Merseyside LSC dug into its local initiative fund to help keep the apprentices on their programmes until completion and identified skills gaps among employers in the area, making progress finding jobs for a skilled group of young people.
Another positive piece of local action this month, came with the LSC’s decision to get the careers service to interview every 16-19 student at North Derbyshire Tertiary College, which may be merged with another after a damaging inspection report. It says it will not hesitate to guide students to courses at other colleges if it thinks they will do better there.
It has also placed LSC representatives on the North Derbyshire corporation board.
“It does seem that they are able to take a more flexible approach compared with the FEFC,” said Paul Holmes MP, a member of the Commons education committee, whose Chesterfield constituency includes a college outreach centre. He said the FEFC had spotted similar problems at the college seven years ago but failed to act with the LSC’s determination.
