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Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]

We are talking about a further reduction, but the £55.7 million is a one-off cost to secure an annual saving of £40 million. An initial investment made a couple of years ago reduced the LSC’s administrative costs from 4.6 per cent. of its total budget to just 1.9 per cent. That is an example of invest to save. The education and training on offer must be both attractive to prospective students—appealing to a broad range of abilities and interests—and lead to qualifications that are useful to employers. New duties will also be placed on the LSC to encourage diversity, and to increase opportunity and choice in education and training provision. It is essential that we listen to what learners and employers tell us that they need, and that we put public money to best use by designing provision accordingly, instead of implementing what the Government or FE colleges think that employers and learners need.