If all goes to plan, 2002 will be a year of perfect harmony in England’s post-16 sector. The top combo will have lifelong learning minister Margaret Hodge on harp, Tony Blair’s education policy advisor Patrick Diamond on sax, University for Industry director Frances Hendrix on pianola and Unipart education boss Ian Cambell on vocals.

They can dream - and did. When the Campaign for Learning asked leaders what they wanted to achieve this year, a surprising number had musical goals.

David Gibson, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, was more down to earth. He says he will learn to use a palmtop computer - to make his PA’s life easier. It will presumably also help him add up all those extra millions he expects to come from Chancellor Gordon Brown following the Triennial Spending Review in June.

After all, Estelle Morris, the Education Secretary, did reassure the AOC annual conference in Birmingham last November that, while the Government was right to focus on the early school and secondary years in its first term “further education’s time has come”.

And, as Mr Gibson points out this week: “Further education received unprecedented attention in the Chancellor’s pre-Budget review. Our performance is described as ‘crucial to the success of any attempt to increase training and skills in the UK workforce’.

“As the sector which also delivers more than 40 per cent of entrants into higher education and which is the key to transforming choice in the 14-19 phase too, colleges are at the heart of the action.”

AOC policy, in a nutshell, is to remedy the fact that there is too little dosh in the system to do the job. And what there is should be better deployed. The association had a good year in 2001, culminating in a successful campaign (with The TES) to cut expensive bureaucracy which, Mr Gibson says, frustrates good management.

The message from Bryan Sanderson, chairman of the Learning and Skills Council, should give hope. It will make the cutting of red tape in colleges by a quarter a priority (see box). And emphasising his desire to hear the new dulcet harmonies throughout the sector, he says: “We all need big ears.

“No, the stresses of the LSC chairmanship have not driven me back to my childhood and the politically incorrect world of Enid Blyton. I believe that we now have government commitment, additional resources (never enough) and an organisation, in the LSC, to free up and start to deliver on some of the biggest challenges facing our society.

“Nobody believes it can be done quickly or easily. It won’t be done at all unless we listen to each other. So we all need to grow big ears in 2002.”

But will the ears hear everything colleges have to say, particularly over bureaucracy. There were real fears, as 2001 came to a close that the pledge to have “fewer funding streams” and stop the bidding process for all the Standards Fund pots would actually result in cash being taken away from colleges. College employer organisations were seeking reassurances on this as The TES went to press.

And who will listen to the unions? Unless there are some firm reassurances from minister, there is trouble on the horizon over pay. Paul Mackney, general secretary of lecturers’ union NATFHE, has already sounded the warning signal over industrial action.

His wish-list for the year echoes this: “Above all, for a happy 2002, NATFHE wants to see: a return to pay parity between college lecturers and school teachers. Or, if government and employer commitment to this melts away, a massive and enthusiastically supported campaign of action to put an end to the injustice.”

That’s not all. “NATFHE also sees a crying need for adequate financial support for FE and HE students; a national agreement to limit excessive workloads; significant steps to eliminate discrimination; equality for part-time and temporary college staff; and an end to counterfeit ‘self-employment’ through agencies.”

Isn’t Mr Gibson asking the same? He adds: “We want the Spending Review to deliver a higher level of core funding so that we can deliver a better quality of service to our learners and a much better level of reward to all our staff.”

And co-operation from staff is crucial, as 2002 reforms start in late January with the publication of what minsters promise will be a radical 14-19 Green Paper and the start of pilot 14-19 projects bringing together the school, college and work place.

This coincides with NATFHE’s FE sector conference which is certain to demand industrial action unless more cash is pledged, not just for pay but to cut the workload. Unless lecturers and support staff see parity with teachers, ministers will have a job convincing them to pursue collaborative ventures with schools.

The year promises a crowded agenda as new “lighter-touch” inspections are introduced for the most successful colleges and a huge programme gets under way - though the Further Education National Training Organisation - to “professionalise” and give qualified teacher status to lecturers.

New “Skills Sector Councils” are promised much more clout to set standards for work-related training when they replace the existing national training organisations in March. At the same time, there will be new measures to get one in three 16 to 21-year-olds on to new-style Modern Apprenticeships.

Pressure to hit adult numeracy and literacy targets will be greater than ever. The LSC has already conceded defeat over the target to get 85 per cent of 16 to 19-year-olds up to level 2 (GCSE grade C). But through a combination of local LSC plans and a new adult literacy and numeracy circular by the autumn, Mr Sanderson is confident that a range of lifelong learning targets will be set for (and achieved by) 2004.

Colleges (particularly sixth-form colleges) will bear the brunt of the continuing reforms to A and AS-levels, as those who battled through AS-levels last summer take the new A2 exam this year.

It is in sixth-form colleges where some of the biggest problems will emerge, unless the Government and LSC get the funding formula right, Sue Whitham, head of the Sixth Form Colleges Employers’ Forum warns.

“The growing funding gap with schools and the failure to address the pay differential of support staff are pressing issues. And, as the LSC takes over the funding of school sixth-forms providing the same courses as colleges for 16 to 19-year-olds, how can such totally different levels be justified.”

College managers too are getting restless over pay, according to Peter Pendle, chief executive of the Association for College Managers, “as the teaching pay initiative creates anomalies for those higher up the scales”.

As the various organisations plan their strategies for the coming year, everything appears to rest on just how generous the Chancellor will be. If ministers really want harmony in 2002 then that passing word of assurance from Ms Morris must be acted on.

THE COMING CHANGES

Learning and Skills Council agenda and associated actions for 2002

* Cut red tape in colleges: Sir George Sweeney’s red tape busting task force starts work

* Introduce light-touch inspections: consultation paper due

* Reduce the Standards Fund funding streams: consultation paper

* Achieve smooth transfer of sixth-form funds to LSC

* Improve learning for people with learning difficulties: circular due

* Introduce individual learning records: circular

* Deliver on adult literacy and numeracy: circular

* Raise the profile of Modern Apprenticeships: ongoing marketing campaign jointly with Department for Education and Skills and response to the Cassells Report

* LSC to make input into 14-19 Green Paper

* Publish local learning and skills council strategic plans

* Introduce the workforce development strategy

* Carry out a survey of learners

* Expand the number of centres of vocational excellence

* Publish second corporate plan

* Publish LSC Annual Report

* Introduce pilots for 14-16 vocational curriculum