A good first step, the turning of a corner, a pre-election bribe, a totally inadequate gesture or even a promise that might never be delivered? That seems to cover the spectrum of responses to the chancellor’s announcement on Saturday of a £400 million boost to 16 to 19 education and college funding.

You can take your pick and time might let us make a more considered judgement. I’m in the “good first step” camp, believing that this is a significant shift that heralds more in the future. I hope I am correct, because the 30 per cent cut in college funding over the past decade needs a lot more than £400 million to overturn. To make good the decade of neglect will require a hefty increase in the funding per 16- to 19-year-old as well as more investment in adults, apprenticeships and capital.

More news: £400m boost for colleges: 16-18 funding finally raised

Quick read: Colleges to receive £100m for rising pensions bill

Background: £800m for further education: What’s really going on?

The increase in college funding

I’m writing this in sunny Brisbane, ahead of the annual conference for TAFE Directors Australia, a close equivalent of our FE colleges. They’ve invited me out here in part because they want to hear about how post-16 education policy is developing, but mainly because they have been watching our #LoveOurColleges campaign and want to learn from it.

Being so far away, particularly this week with that announcement, provides an interesting perspective. Preparing a keynote presentation (“We want you to be inspirational” was the helpful brief, no pressure then) on our campaigning and influencing helps to focus one’s mind. What have we done? What worked? How did it work? What could we have done better? What do we still need to do? How much influence did we really have, or was the timing simply lucky?

I’m sure that the timing was fortunate but equally certain that the #LoveOurColleges campaign has really worked and looks set to influence the spending review next year. When I started at the Association of Colleges, three years ago, I used a slide in my presentations to college leaders that showed what people said were the top issues facing the UK. Health, Brexit/EU and immigration were the top three - and education came next. At the time, I made two observations. Firstly, that this list of key issues is what drives political decision-making, more perhaps than we often allow for. Secondly, that what people mean by education is almost wholly schools and universities, with colleges nowhere to be seen or heard.

Colleges as ‘vital institutions’

In the same presentations to college leaders, I remember saying that it was our job to make “education” include colleges as vital institutions, alongside schools and universities. I knew that we would have to work hard to achieve that, but that it was crucial if our calls for better funding in the short- and longer-term were to be listened to.

With most politicians, civil servants and influencers having moved from a linear school career into an advantageous university experience, colleges are often overlooked, certainly not fully understood and because of that completely under-valued in Whitehall.

That’s where the #LoveOurColleges campaign kicked in. We set out, with a great range of passionate and hard-working partners, to raise the profile of colleges, to increase the understanding and to win hearts and minds. We helped college leaders to work together better, to be more positive about what colleges do and the impact they have. We asked leaders to spend more time on building relationships with MPs and key local influencers and to help mobilise staff and students to support the cause. On all of those, the college sector has moved forward in leaps and bounds. And it has worked.

Raising the profile of FE

We have raised the profile of colleges in the minds of many in Whitehall and beyond, pushed colleges into the list of what chancellor Sajid Javid called “the people’s priorities” and, as a result, £400 million of investment is coming our way. So far, so good.

The biggest and toughest job comes next. We need a long-term funding settlement for colleges that allows them to thrive. We need a vision of what colleges can be and do for their communities, for people, for employers, for society and for the economy. While supporting college leaders and staff to deliver it. Some of that must come in next year’s spending review, but some of it must come from colleges themselves.

That’s why we established the Commission on the College of the Future. Working across all four nations of the UK, the commission is backed by college leaders - including Colleges Scotland, Colleges Wales and the colleges in Northern Ireland - and is supported by experts from all sectors. It can help to develop a vision which everyone can get behind of how colleges will evolve over the next decade and what roles they will play in a changed society. Crucially, I am hoping that the commission will help us to describe how colleges will work with schools and universities in delivering the lifelong-learning society that they are vital for and that I’d truly love to see develop.

David Hughes is chief executive of the Association of Colleges