House of Commons
Wednesday 19 February 1997
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Further Education
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Coe.]
9.34 am
Mr. Greg Pope (Hyndburn): I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important issue. Most hon. Members probably attended a further education or sixth form college, or a sixth form in a school. As most of us have benefited from further education, it is only right, fair and proper that we should take an interest in the sector when it faces such difficulties.
Further education colleges play a vital role as centres of opportunity and learning. They add social and economic value to their communities. The 357 colleges in England and Wales educate more than 3 million students. I make no apologies for the remarks that I shall make on the situation in east Lancashire. I have received much correspondence, both from the college in my constituency and from those in neighbouring constituencies.
The crisis in further education adversely affects its students, lecturers and institutions. From the point of view of staff, incorporation has been nothing less than a disaster. It has led to worsening conditions of service and many redundancies. My local college, Accrington and Rossendale, is due to have its inspection report published early next month. Early signs are that it will get a good report, with staff awarded the highest praise and marks possible. Their reward will be further undermining, underfunding and redundancies. Across the sector, more than 10,000 jobs have been lost since incorporation in 1993.
There is a damaging dispute at my local college. It centres on the case of Mr. Pat Walsh, the senior union official in the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education. He claims that he was sacked by the college because of his trade union activities. The college governing body claims that he was genuinely made redundant. NATFHE is balloting tomorrow for strike action. If it goes ahead, it will be at a damaging time for students in the run-up to public examinations. All that one can say with certainty about this fiasco is that, whatever the failings of the previous system--and there were failings--such disasters did not happen before the incorporation of colleges.
Some people in my constituency want to blame the governing body for the appalling state of affairs. I reject that. I want to lay the blame fairly and squarely where it belongs: at the door of the Minister, the Government and the Further Education Funding Council, which has created a severely flawed funding mechanism for colleges.
Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley):
Is it not true that in Lancashire--and, I am sure, in the rest of the country--
Mr. Pope:
My hon. Friend makes an important point. One problem is the tension between providers. Training and enterprise councils pull in one direction and colleges in another. Where is the co-ordination between education and training? There is very little co-ordination between the two. We now have the spectacle, as my hon. Friend said, of neighbouring colleges with mushrooming marketing budgets competing in the marketplace and offering very similar courses. They are fighting each other for the same students. It is ridiculous that, in our part of the world, Blackburn, Accrington and Rossendale, Burnley, and Nelson and Colne colleges offer similar courses, competing for the same students.
There is a democratic deficit in the sector. The Further Education Funding Council is yet another Government-appointed quango--a tame mouthpiece for the Government. There is a strong case for democratising the Further Education Funding Council's structure. Often, colleges have little or no accountability to the communities that they serve. I am not suggesting that the colleges should be returned to local education authority control--I do not think that anyone is suggesting that. However, there is a strong case for reforming college governing bodies, to increase openness and improve accountability to local communities.
Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South):
Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that there are colleges--Newham college of further education is one--where attempts are being made to meet the needs of the community by establishing close connections? Our concern is that there seems to disagreement among the three statutory bodies, perhaps even among the Treasury and the Department for Education and Employment, over the changes in the demand-led element, which have caused enormous problems in colleges that have been integrated into the community and are trying to meet community needs.
Mr. Pope:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I shall refer later to the fiasco of the demand-led element; catching up with the Government's flip-flops on that policy is quite an art form.
Ms Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North):
My hon. Friend referred to a fiasco. We are also concerned about the problem in Stoke-on-Trent college, where there has been a fiasco. Does he agree that we face a problem in terms of lack of accountability over the way in which the Further Education Funding Council was set up? Does he also agree that the National Audit Office report does not address accountability? When my hon. Friend further considers the problems faced by his college, despite the best efforts of its staff, will he also consider how we may address the problem of deficits across the country, including Stoke-on-Trent?
Mr. Pope:
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The problems at Accrington and Rossendale college are replicated, almost exactly, at Stoke, Burnley and Nelson and Colne colleges and other colleges throughout the country. Early-day motion 452, which has attracted
Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East):
I can confirm that the position in Bolton is extremely serious. The principal, Mr. Hogan, has written to me to say that he feels that the funding cuts are disastrous. The managing director of the focus training group, Mr. Heathcote, who has built up what I believe to be Britain's leading gymnastic training instruction course, says that to have such a sudden cut imposed with so little warning will have a desperate effect on the future of his business.
Mr. Pope:
The hon. Gentleman also makes an important point, to which I shall refer later. In Bolton and in colleges throughout the country, as a result of Government action over the demand-led element, student numbers will decrease, courses will be cut, and people on continuing courses will be left high and dry without proper support, which is a disgrace.
When the colleges agreed with the Government that they would expand--it was a Government initiative to get the colleges to expand--it was also agreed that, if growth exceeded the FEFC targets, the excess would be funded at demand-led element rates. Under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, students eligible under schedule 2 were to be funded by either core, marginal or demand-led element rates.
Now, colleges that have expanded at the behest of the Government are being penalised for having done so. Although the Government have belatedly and rather grudgingly accepted that they must pay the £84 million that colleges are owed for the rest of this academic year, the DLE is still to be abolished in the next academic year, 1997-98.
It is even harder for the colleges to accept that there was never any suggestion that the 1996-97 payments from the FEFC were insecure until they received the out-of-the-blue letter from the Minister on 28 January. The Government's hypocrisy is incredible: they have gone back on commitments that they made to the colleges; they have betrayed their own claims to be the party committed to expansion and diversity in further education; and they have disregarded the achievements that colleges have made as they strive to meet the national training and education targets laid down for them.
Mr. Stephen Timms (Newham, North-East):
Has my hon. Friend seen the letter from the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), dated 10 January, in which she reaffirmed the demand-led element of the funding formula, only for that element to be withdrawn two and a half weeks later?
Mr. Pope:
It was withdrawn after two and a half weeks, and then there was another flip-flop in early February. It is interesting that the letter was sent to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), many of whose constituents attend my local college who, sadly, is not in his place today.
The Government's behaviour has startled the principals, many of whom are long-serving principals of colleges. Recently, the principal of St. Mary's Roman Catholic sixth
form college in Blackburn, an excellent institution with a fine academic record--a point unrelated to the fact that I was educated there--described the problem when he said that colleges that had exceeded the target were now being "savagely penalised". The principal of Accrington and Rossendale college said in a letter to me that the Government's actions were "unforgivable".
The fact that the Government will not be funding the DLE for the FEFC means that budgets of an already economically ruined sector will be thrown into further disrepair. I shall outline the track record of a Government who have been in office for 18 years. One in five colleges are in a weak financial position; one in five full-time teaching posts have been lost since 1993; and the further loss of the DLE funds will mean that more job losses are to come.
I understand that Nelson and Colne college, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice)--I am sure that he will want to raise the issue if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker--has announced that 47 jobs might have to go in the coming year. In real terms, the 1996 budget removes £233.3 million from the sector for the period 1996-97 to 1999-2000.
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