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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

We should employ the noble Baroness in the department to act as a one-person bureaucracy-buster for further education. If she wishes to bring back an amendment on Report proposing that she occupies that post, we might give it sympathetic consideration, particularly if she has the power to reduce the long documents my department produces to three pages. As a Minister, I am always anxious to see the most concise presentation of documents. We would welcome her services. We are in favour of any action that reduces unnecessary bureaucracy in the FE system, and we are as committed as both noble Baronesses to resisting what the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, referred to as the veritable snowstorm. I hope it is not quite that bad, but we believe there is a continuing challenge to see that bureaucracy is reduced and that concision becomes the order of the day in the production of those documents that are essential. In the FE White Paper, we said that the Learning and Skills Council would introduce a single gateway for all its publications and data returns. The communications gateway is modelled on the gateway for publication sent to schools, which followed the action by my right honourable friend David Miliband, which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to. We are establishing a panel with members drawn from colleges and providers who can describe real examples of information overload. I will draw to the attention of the panel the particular instance the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, has just given. It will challenge the department and other agencies to reduce the amount of prescriptive guidance they send out. We will shortly be inviting nominations for the new panel, from the Opposition parties as well as from the sector itself. As for reducing the bureaucratic burden across the system, we have also set up the Information Authority, a body that includes representation from the DfES, providers, inspectorates, HEFCE and the QCA. It will be independently chaired, and the IA will determine the amount of data to be collected from FE colleges, and when. The Bureaucracy Reduction Group has representatives from all the key bodies plus practitioners, trades unions, associations and managers from the FE sector. The group, which reports to Ministers, has a key strategic role to scrutinise and challenge any aspects of policy implementation that, it considers, result in excessive material or administrative burdens. We are on the case, but I am sure we can always do better.