NIGEL Robbins, principal of Cirencester College, despaired at the volume of work required to apply for a tiny sum of money from the Learning and Skills Council. He has entered the bidding process for a Jarndyce Award: largest amount of effort for smallest gain. What follows is an exchange of letters with John Harwood, the council’s chief executive.
I HAVE just been invited to bid for the sum of pound;665, under the heading of continuing professional development, in connection with the Standards Fund for work-based learning providers. For this sum I am required to sign a declaration supporting five guarantees for which I am personally liable - original signature only. We are also expected to provide a costed action plan in accordance with three pages of guidance notes and a new 27-page circular on Continuous Improvement.
Since we have already prepared, and had approved, a thoroughly detailed, costed action plan under category 2(b) for a much larger sum of money, I am baffled as to why we are expected to go through these ridiculous hoops for what are trifling amounts of money.
The requirements are also totally at odds with the statements of intent at the Association of Colleges’ conference where you vowed to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and to channel the Standards Fund into a few broad streams from the mass of tiny boulder-strewn rivulets into which the money is currently routed.
I would be interested to know how you reconcile your undeniably good intentions with the practice of your organisation. I am quite sure my governing body would say, if they knew, that this was a complete waste of my time.
Nigel Robbins Principal, Cirencester College THANK you for your letter of November 28 , drawing attention to the current workings of the Standards Fund.
You ask me how I reconcile my statements at the AOC conference with the paperwork you have in front of you about that Fund.
The answer is very simple; I have come to the same conclusions as you. You have drawn attention precisely to the point I was making at the conference - that the value of many of these funding streams is out of proportion to the audit and bureaucratic burden associated with them.
That is also why I was pleased to be able to report at the conference that we have persuaded ministers to allow us to change the basic operating principles of the fund (which we inherited from the Further Education Funding Council) for next year.
You will recall that I set out the way in which the fund would work. On the assumption that you do not need the pound;665 and that the cost of applying for it would probably be greater, I would be very happy for you to say to us that it was not worth applying for.
I have copied our correspondence to George Sweeney (chair of an inquiry into paperwork) and his taskforce and I look forward to your continuing support for our drive to reduce the burden of unnecessary bureaucracy.
John Harwood Chief executive Learning and Skills Council
FE FocusAssociation of Colleges Jarndyce Award
The new quarterly Jarndyce Award - named after Dickens’s Bleak House, a satire on bureaucracy - is for the most ludicrous example of red tape in colleges. Entries are invited in any of the five categories: 1: Largest amount of effort for smallest gain
2: Most perverse outcome
3: Sheer volume of effort
4: Duplication of effort
5: Most incomprehensible documentdemands
The AOC is collating entries to the competition through its regional offices. Colleges can also send examples to Ian Nash, FE Editor, The TES, Admiral House, 66-68 East Smithfield, London E1. Fax 020 7782 3202, e-mail: ian.nash@tes.co.uk.
