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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

I am devastated that the noble Baroness is not holding her breath for my reply to her amendment. I always thought that she looked forward to my responses much more eagerly than is clearly the case. The noble Baroness asked a very general question about whether we support the capacity of colleges to develop their own ethos and mission. We strongly support the capacity of colleges to meet local needs. They are incorporated colleges and to that extent they operate independently. There is a necessary degree of regulation and oversight, and they have to operate within their allocated budget. Subject to that and to their demonstrating good value for money and satisfying inspectors of their quality, they have huge scope to develop their own independent ethos. The regulatory burden on them will be reduced by the fact that the number of Learning and Skills Councils will be substantially reduced, therefore fewer people will be engaged in the task of regulation. I hope that in general terms I can meet the noble Baroness’s concerns. The further education White Paper clearly sets out the scope of colleges to develop their own individual ethos and mission. It is entirely up to them, for example, how far they seek to engage, subject to quality concerns, in developing sub-degree provision, the nature of their relationship with 14-to-19 partnerships, and how they develop their role in respect of adult skills, basic skills, and so on. As far as I could see, the amendment would remove the Learning and Skills Council entirely, which, I assume, is not what the noble Baroness intended. I thought that she was proposing that everything would then be done personally by the Secretary of State. My right honourable friend is a man of many parts, but to take the decisions about the individual funding of 1,800 school sixth forms, 385 colleges and 1,000 work-based learning providers, all providing education and training to 5.5 million post-16 learners, is probably slightly beyond him, although he has all their interests personally at heart. I give those figures simply to make the point about the scope of the Learning and Skills Council’s activities. It has responsibility, with an £11 billion budget, for a huge diversity and volume of learning and training. Although we would all like bureaucracy to be minimised, given the scale of the responsibilities and the size of the budget of the council, we cannot dispense with a structure such as that which is set out in the Bill. I hope the noble Baroness will not seek to impose all those duties personally on the Secretary of State.