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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 10: 10: Clause 2 , page 2, line 46, leave out ““financial year”” and insert ““funding period”” The noble Baroness said: I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 11, 12, 15, 16 and 17. The purpose of Amendments Nos. 10, 11, 15, 16 and 17 is to allow the regional councils to plan financially over a period greater than one year. No organisation can plan properly over such a short period. Indeed, schools now have their budgets available over a three-year period, so we believe it is essential for the national council to allow the budgets of regional councils to be worked over the same sort of funding period. We have suggested in Amendment No. 17 that the period should be no less than two years, but we believe that three years, as for schools, would be reasonable. Amendment No. 12 is somewhat different; it requires the proportion of the budget that must be spent on learners with special needs to be determined. It would be far too easy to neglect the needs of special learners when responding to all the local needs and budgetary pressures. The amendment is intended to protect them. That group are more likely to need the services of a further education college, given that their disability or special need may have meant that they have lost time during their compulsory schooling or that they have been slower than children who do not have their disability in achieving the qualifications of which they are capable. Further education is of particular value to that group of learners, and provision for that learning should be mandatory. It should be quite clear that the amount considered appropriate for that group is laid out and that the regional council must stick to it and spend it appropriately. We are not trying to tell the regional councils how to spend that money—they must do that, depending on their local knowledge—but the amount of money that needs to be spent on that special group of learners ought to be ring-fenced. I beg to move.