I see from the Institute for Learning (IfL) governance report of 31 March 2010, published on its website, that its income was approximately pound;6 million - pound;30 per head from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for approximately 200,000 members. It employed 49 staff. Let’s be generous and assume pound;1 million for premises, heat and light, postage, telephones, stationery, insurance, and so on. Even more generously, pound;500,000 for IT equipment and its maintenance. That means that the average wage cost per employee was almost pound;92,000. Rather more than the average FE teacher, I think.

The IfL’s proposed membership fee of pound;68 would give it an income of over pound;13 million. For what, exactly? Doesn’t he who pays the piper call the tune? Before we even consider funding the IfL from our own pockets, we need to know far more about how the institute proposes to spend the money - and what it has been spending it on, down to individual salary payments - and far more details of all the rest.

FE lecturer, Name and address supplied.