In the week that MPs launched their second official inquiry into further education since Labour came to power, colleges have warned that red tape has reached record levels.
Frustrated college managers have threatened a “strike” against red tape, where they would refuse to fill in Learning and Skills Council forms.
The case of South Birmingham College is typical: it faces 10 inspections involving at least 57 inspectors in two months. Teams of internal and external auditors, area inspectors, the Office for Standards in Education, the Adult Learning Inspectorate and European Social Fund auditors are imposing different bureaucratic demands.
Rather than the promised saving of pound;50 million, the creation of one of the country’s biggest quangos has actually led to a huge increase in costs, the Commons select education committee heard this week.
The Further Education Funding Council and the Training and Enterprise Councils cost pound;150 million to run, but the LSC which replaced them has an administration budget of pound;188m this year, rising to pound;193m next year.
“The LSC is much more bureaucratic than its predecessors,” David Gibson, chief executive of the Association of Colleges told MPs.
Many colleges contacted FE Focus in advance of the inquiry to say they have abandoned attempts to bid for European money or fee subsidies for unemployed students because of the red tape involved.
The last select committee inquiry into the state of FE called for a more planned approach. But, say colleges, the result has been a bigger mountain of bureaucracy.
Ivan Lewis, minister for young people and learning, has invited managers to send him examplesof “onerous” bureaucracy. But this has failed to impress colleges who want a firm pledge to cut red tape.
John Brennan, AoC director of funding development, said: “Fine words butter no parsnips. We want action. As yet there’s no tangible decision to do anything about it, let alone a time-scale.”
At the inquiry this week he said there were now 73 different funding schemes, each with its own rules of accounting. There were extensive audits and inspections.
John Taylor, principal of Sheffield College, gave a graphic account of the inspection burden. In August, he said, one area of provision had been inspected for four days, even though the college had no intention of enrolling any students in September. In January the higher education provision - 32 students - will be inspected. “It will cost pound;32,000 to prepare for it, that’s pound;1,000 per student,” he said.
Coming up are area-wide inspections, learndirect inspections, and even re-inspections of the main body of colleges’ work.
Ruth Silver, principal of Lewisham College, described the levels of bureaucracy as “alarming” and said they were increasing. “I have seen no signs of any savings whatsoever.” She had just received a questionnaire from the LSC with 136 questions on finance and governance alone.
Comment: tesfefocus.co.uk
Letters, 36
