David Willetts

A mere 13 of the 144 frozen college building projects have been given the go-ahead, ministers revealed today. Every one of the approved projects is in a Labour-held seat.

David Willetts, the Shadow Secretary of State for Universities and Skills, said:

“After almost a year of delay, 131 colleges building projects - many of them ‘shovel-ready’ - still have not got the go-ahead. They will be deeply disappointed by today’s announcement. It is the young people deprived of high quality training opportunities who are the real losers from Labour’s incompetence.

“The Government has decided only projects in Labour seats can get support - Labour’s lucky thirteen.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

1. In a written statement today, Kevin Brennan, the Minister for Further Education, Skills, Apprenticeships and Consumer Affairs, announced ‘a shortlist of 13 further education building projects which are proceeding to the next stage of development. The 13 projects announced today have been prioritised from over 180 projects submitted to the LSC as part of the latest round of the FE Capital programme.’ The 13 colleges will be asked to amend their initial plans by making ‘cost reductions’ and ‘examin[ing] other possible sources of funds’ (Written Statement, 26 June 2009).

2. Overall, about 40 per cent of the frozen projects are in Liberal Democrat or Conservative-held seats. Yet every one of the projects approved today is in a Labour area.

Background

• First freeze. On 17 December 2008, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) decided to freeze the approval process for all FE college building projects for at least three months. The LSC decision was made suddenly with no public statement (Letter from the Chief Executive of the AoC to the Chief Executive of the LSC, 8 January 2009 and AoC, Briefing, 8 January 2009).
• Freeze extended. In March 2009, the Government announced that it would be freezing the approval process for 144 college building projects. Seventy-nine of the frozen colleges had already received agreement in principle and were only awaiting approval in detail (the final stage of the approval process). These colleges have incurred considerable costs to reach this stage. The value of the government contribution required for these 79 projects is £2.7bn. The other 65 frozen colleges are waiting for approval in principle. These colleges have already assembled a project team and put money towards preparing the bid and would require a £3bn government contribution to go ahead (DIUS, Press Release, 4 March 2009).
• LSC chief resigns. On 23 March 2009, Mark Haysom, the Chief Executive of the Learning and Skills Council, resigned over the capital crisis.
• Foster review commissioned. Following a three-month delay to some FE college building projects, John Denham asked Sir Andrew Foster to lead a review into the management of the college building programme. His report was published on 1 April 2009 (Sir Andrew Foster, A review of the Capital Programme in Further Education, 1 April 2009).
• Foster finds serious fault. The Foster report identified serious failings in both DIUS and the Learning and Skills Council. He found that ‘the most significant problems were systemic’ and that the crisis ‘could have been mitigated if action had been taken earlier’ (p. 21 & p. 5)
  •  The problems stemmed from ‘the absence of a proper long term financial strategy and inadequate management information and monitoring.’ (p. 5)
  • Colleges were encouraged to bid as ‘the LSC promoted the programme intensively… Spurred on by the stated policy of renewing the entire estate, local LSC teams actively solicited projects from colleges and worked with college principals to turn more modest proposals into wholesale upgrading of the entire college estate.’ (p. 14)
  • In early 2008-09 ‘there began a surge in demand for capital… The surge became a veritable tsunami, leading, as the year turned, to a pause in approvals and great consternation in the field.’ (p. 9)
  • To make matters worse, the LSC was too slow to respond: ‘there were straws in the wind, early storm warnings, but the problem was not crystallised fast enough.’ (p. 22)  

• Failures lead back to the Government. Although the role of the LSC was to deliver ‘effective implementation’ of the college building programme, it remained the responsibility of DIUS ‘to determine and monitor the implementation of broad policy’ (p. 5). The report found that DIUS failed in this role: ‘DIUS monitored the LSC during the period and had most of the information that was actually collected and held centrally by the LSC. Senior staff in DIUS could have probed more actively the robustness of the forward projections of future funding commitments. Their challenge was insufficiently incisive to uncover ongoing flaws in implementation.’ Furthermore, there was ‘insufficient clarity and understanding around the relationship between the LSC and DIUS’ (p. 6).