Colleges employed an average of nine staff each last year to cope with the growing mountain of “largely unnecessary” paperwork and red tape.

A national red tape survey by FE Focus suggests that an army of more than 4,000 full-time equivalent data gatherers and number crunchers were deployed in further education in England.

The three biggest offenders on college hate lists were auditing, individual learner records and the complex funding requirements. More than three-quarters of colleges (76 per cent) saw these areas as the highest priority in terms of tackling bureaucracy.

The survey was carried out on the anniversary of the “cut red tape in colleges” campaign mounted by FE Focus and the Association of Colleges. The campaign triggered the creation of the Learning and Skills Council bureaucracy-busting task force.

The LSC promised measures to reduce paperwork by a quarter and moved swiftly to introduce early reforms, such as cutting the number of “funding streams” colleges must bid for from 17 to three.

But the survey suggests changes have been slow to take effect and, in many areas, bureaucracy has got worse, with an average of 2,015 staff days a year spent dealing with unnecessary paperwork. Colleges had to recruit an additional five full-time equivalent staff to deal with the demands - diverting essential resources away from teaching and learning.

Forty per cent of colleges saw the auditing system as the area most in need of attention. Individual learner records accounted for 19 per cent of first choices by principals and managers with funding making up 17 per cent.

“The current audit arrangements are incredibly time-consuming and expensive,” said Colin Flint, principal of Solihull College. “We are being audited by so many different people these days, by national and local LSCs as well as our own, and external auditors.”

Despite government efforts to cut red tape associated with the Standards Fund, 45 per cent of college managers surveyed believed further simplification of funding would still have the most impact in terms of cutting bureaucracy.

In addition, principals made a plea for longer planning cycles and a better and more transparent relationship with the LSC and other government agencies. Half of colleges said the large number of funding streams and one-year funding planning cycles caused the biggest problems for the sector.

Brian Styles, principal of City of Bristol College, said: “The time of senior management is increasingly dominated by their attempts to manage and make sense of the infernal triangle caused by the funding methodology, individual learner records and ILR audit.”

Different agencies requesting the same information is causing frustration across the whole sector and is also a major concern for principals. When asked to list their priorities for attention on a scale of one to eight, a third of colleges (33 per cent) placed it among their top three. Half (50 per cent) placed duplication of information fourth to sixth.

Exams administration and inspections were given low priority for attention, reflecting improved relations with the agencies and the fact that the main complaints were covered under “duplication of information”.

Exam administration was not placed by any college surveyed as its top priority and only 7 per cent placed it in the top three.

Similarly, no college saw inspections as the worst bureaucracy generator and only around one in 10 saw them in the top three. A quarter of colleges placed inspections between the fourth and sixth most burdensome activity.

The survey reveals that although the number of performance reviews carried out each year in colleges by the LSC has fallen from three to two, there is still discontent about the burden these impose.

Four out of 10 colleges said LSC quality monitoring was one of the the top three areas where a cut in bureaucracy was most needed.

Ruth Silver, principal of Lewisham College, said: “The Government may say we’ve got monitoring down to twice a year now instead of three times, but new bureaucracy is being introduced.

Responding to the survey, Ken Pascoe, director of operations at the LSC, said some bureaucracy was essential for accountability. “But we do believe streamlined systems can be found that meet both the LSC and colleges’

needs.”