Press Release: Abolish excessive red tape to help out-of-work young people and the launch of a Conservative Party consultation document about skills funding
David Willetts, the Shadow Universities and Skills Secretary, will today commit to a big reduction in the amount of information that has to be collected by further education colleges. Currently up to 200 pieces of data have to be collected for each course done by each student, and a typical college can have 45 staff who work exclusively on collecting and entering data.
In a speech at the Association of Colleges conference, David Willetts will promise a new compact between Government and colleges which leaves them much freer to respond to the needs of individuals and employers. He will also promise a level playing-field for private training providers in order to drive up the quality of training. He will say:
“There has been so much turbulence in skills policy in recent years that I am reluctant to propose yet more change. But as I have said before, by the time of the next election the skills landscape will be something between a bombsite and a building site. I do not relish the prospect of further change, but we think it is going to be necessary. The new arrangements are neither responsive nor sustainable enough. We need to move away from the current approach of more target-setting in Whitehall, more quangos and more red tape that saps frontline provision. Instead, we want to deliver a new compact between the centre and training providers of all types. In my speech today, I want to set out the shape of this compact and to launch a consultation(see note) on the new funding arrangements to go with it.”
“Our ultimate goal is one funding body, one audit regime and one improvement body.”
Notes to Editors
The consultation document can be found here: