“I’ve been reading some of your Tes blogs, and there is certainly a bit of a theme running through them,” my friend Richard told me, as we sat drinking coffee at the weekend. It turns out that it wasn’t intended as a compliment, but as compassionate commiseration for the constant (necessary) focus on the chronic underfunding of colleges.

But it did get me thinking and looking back over my two decades in the sector (Richard is a history teacher, after all). It made me reflect on whether I am too focused on investment, or the lack thereof, and whether that focus has been at the expense of the impact colleges have. I’m sure it hasn’t, but taking that moment to pause and look back has renewed my optimism that we are on the cusp of significant and positive change.

Aside from being a sixth-form college student in the 1980s, my introduction to colleges really began in Nottingham in 1997. This was the same year that Helena Kennedy wrote Learning Works: widening participation in further education, and David Blunkett became secretary of state for education. It was a time of great optimism about post-16 education and skills, based on the clear need for greater investment in people and on an understanding of the benefits that colleges bring.

Looking back and looking forward

With the Association of Colleges’ annual conference just around the corner, we’ve invited Baroness Kennedy back to share her thoughts on the two decades following the publication of her piece, and on what the next two could and should look like. We’ve already booked Lord Blunkett in for 2019 - just over two decades since his The Learning Age green paper paved the way for reform.

Our annual conference is a well-established part of the college calendar. It’s a time for the sector to come together, to reflect, to refresh and to reinvigorate for the year ahead. This year’s theme of “driving transformation” looks at colleges’ vital role for individuals, for communities and for the economy.

That theme has been a consistent part of the college world during all my time in it - as has the feeling that college investment is sorely lacking. The Learning Works introduction by Helena Kennedy is well worth a read (as is The Learning Age). The phrase from it that has stayed with me is: “If at first you don’t succeed…you don’t succeed.”

But there are other great parts of what is a scarily familiar overview: “It is because the achievements in further education are so rarely lauded that we have failed to recognise further education’s potential as a vital engine not only of economic renewal but of social cohesion.”

Memories are short

My brief historical flirtation has taught me three things. Firstly, that memories are very short. The optimism in the late 1990s did lead to greater focus and investment in colleges in the 2000s, much of which has been undone in the austerity years since 2008. Secondly, that there is always a frustrating delay between political realisation of the need to invest and when the money starts to flow. The 1998 green paper’s promise of greater focus on post-16 only materialised in the early 2000s.

The most important lesson from history, though, is that colleges are the natural and proper places for greater investment after tough times. They were 20 years ago, and they are now. The Treasury may not like it, as former education secretary Justine Greening has said, but investing in people is what is always needed after tough times. Proper investment in lifelong learning is now viewed as common sense across the political spectrum and across education, society and business. A people’s budget would recognise that today.

The Association of Colleges’ annual conference takes place on 20-21 November at the ICC, Birmingham

David Hughes is chief executive of the Association of Colleges