Keegan: Government won’t ‘clear up’ after colleges
Apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan tells Tes why new intervention powers are needed and why the Skills Bill will introduce a ‘culture of lifelong learning’
The new intervention powers the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill will grant the education secretary will avoid government having to “clear up” once a college is in trouble, apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan has said - adding the government had spent £750 million over the last six years on bailing out FE institutions.
Speaking to Tes today, the minister said the bill, which had its second reading in the House of Lords last week, was “definitely” not about a power grab by government, but was “a massive opportunity, doing something we have never before done in this country”.
The government had spent around three-quarters of a billion pounds in about six years on bailing out colleges, she said, and this was what the new intervention powers for the education secretary, including forcing colleges to merge, would help avoid.
“We have to get that balance right to make sure we can intervene before it gets very expensive and we get to the point where it is a fait accompli and we have to clear up afterwards. All we are trying to do is have a positive intervention before, because in every case what we are looking to do is making sure people have access to a high-quality college education,” she said. “It won’t be utilised very often, but there are three-quarters of a billion reasons why.”
Ms Keegan said the bill would make employers central to the skills and training system and part of the answer, and would introduce a ”culture of lifelong learning” that had not previously existed. “Any time, any age, any stage, wherever you are in the country, you can put yourself forward in a number of different ways.”
“I think it is hard for people to come up with a negative, I think most people are just delighted with what we are trying to achieve,” she added.
She said she expected colleges to have regard to the new local skills improvement plans, but also protect learners and consider other high needs in their area. “That is effectively working to ensure that the colleges deliver as what we identify as needed to close the skills gap - and clearly, we wouldn’t have a skills gap if that was happening today.”
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