The rules that govern the funding of FE colleges and other training providers are too restrictive and are damaging Britain’s fight against recession, say the Tories.

An inflexible funding system that prevents educators accessing money quickly enough to respond to rapidly changing training needs is one of several “policy failures” by the Government, according to the Conservative paper Labour’s failure on skills, which reworks parts of the party’s green paper on skills to reflect current circumstances.

It argues that inflexibility and an “obsession” with full-level qualifications that are “not appropiate” in the current economy are among the reasons that Britain’s skills base is in very poor shape to cope with the recession.