Reducing Bureaucracy in Further Education in England : Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Skills Funding Agency are pursuing a range of initiatives to simplify funding, qualification and assurance systems in further education as part of their wider reform of the skills sector.

However, they do not know the scale of the problem faced by further education colleges and other providers.

It is estimated that the administration of funding, qualification and assurance systems is costing general further education colleges around GBP180 million a year which equates to GBP150 per student.

The NAO has further estimated that this cost amounts to around GBP250 million a year for all types of further education colleges and other providers, even assuming the other providers bear only half the costs of general further education colleges.

Working with the Department for Education, the Department and the Agency have developed a series of initiatives to simplify the system, which target the most costly burdens.

Colleges themselves suggested cutting administration.

The Department and the Agency should set a clear, ambitious target for the scale of the burden reduction they are seeking to provide more impetus to change. A complete picture is needed of the final operating model for the funding, qualification and assurance system, supported by a detailed plan of how to get there.

Nor is it known how much the new system will cost or its impact.

There are various initiatives underway but they are not well coordinated and further education colleges and other providers, although welcoming the changes, do not have confidence that the simplification of the system of administration will be sustained