Have you broken any New Year’s resolutions yet? If the FE sector could have made one collective resolution, I’m guessing that it would have been to form a central part of the government’s post-Brexit policy.

It is striking just how many politicians and commentators are hoping that vocational education can drive new global business opportunities and reconnect those losing out from long-term economic change: from Carolyn Fairbairn at the CBI to the TUC’s Frances O’Grady, and from Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England to Ukip’s Nigel Farage. It’s even common ground in prime minister Theresa May’s “economy that works for everyone” and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn’s “fairer society”.

FE colleges, then, are central to at least two aspects of the UK’s post-Brexit future. The first is providing the technical and vocational training that improves life chances, and offers businesses and public services the skilled workers they need.

FE colleges are central to the UK’s post-Brexit future

The second is helping to find answers for the communities in which these issues are the most challenging - for the disconnected, the left behind and the angry. The places where manufacturing once dominated. Places that voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, against the political and economic status quo. Places with few adults receiving good qualifications or children getting a good education. Places likely to be without universities.

Colleges ‘know communities’

But places with colleges: Dudley, Mansfield, Oldham, Hartlepool and others in our industrial heartlands. Pretty much the entire English coastline, from Grimsby and Great Yarmouth to Skegness and Southend. Places where colleges are easily among the biggest institutions, with the biggest payrolls and the biggest assets.

These are the communities for which few people know what can be done. Jared Bernstein, once a White House economist, has admitted as much about America’s rust belt. The economist John Kay and the Resolution Foundation’s Gavin Kelly have said the same about the UK. We don’t know what works in these places and we don’t have a plan.

So what do colleges think we should be doing? They know these communities better than the rest of us. I suspect the answer isn’t GCSE resits in English and maths. Or achievement targets, more competition and a Post-16 Skills Plan. Nor is it just “proper funding” (although that’s almost certainly a part of it). Ahead of all this has to be knowledge and a vision for what would work best - and then granting colleges the autonomy and resources to get on with the job.

Policy ideas have rarely been so thin on the ground

We might have to wait a long time for plans from May, Corbyn or Farage. Even the most well-meaning business leaders and experts are struggling. Policy ideas have rarely been so thin on the ground. Consultations, reviews and manifestos must all be filled. But promises need to be kept.

So here’s my suggested New Year’s resolution for FE: decide what you would do and tell people quickly. What’s your vision? What do you think we should really be doing to face up to Brexit’s challenges? It’s a big ask to come up with answers where others have failed, but the prize is a higher political profile, proper funding and greater autonomy. None of these are very likely otherwise.

Andy Westwood is director of the University of Wolverhampton Observatory, associate vice-president for public affairs at the University of Manchester and a former government special adviser @AndyWWestwood