Colleges do not need to be brought back into public ownership, the Collab Group of colleges has said. 

In a new report, The White Paper for Further Education, the Collab Group, which is made up of large FE colleges across the UK, argued that “such an approach would not be best for the communities served by further education colleges in England as it risks undermining their ability to respond flexibly to local conditions.”

The report comes in anticipation of a FE White Paper due to be published this Autumn. 

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The paper is expected to focus on four “pillars”, and could include a mechanism for bringing failing colleges under state control, Tes understands. 

However, in its report, the Collab Group pointed to Scottish colleges - which have been reclassified as public sector institutions - and said that they now had “much less operational autonomy.”

The report added: “In large metropolitan cities in England, colleges are having to cater to diverse populations with higher levels of income inequality while also needing to respond to the regional demands around transport, housing, and infrastructure.

“Ensuring joined up and strategic thinking at a local and regional level seems to have provided a mechanism for colleges in Greater Manchester to play a more active role in skills policy, without necessarily requiring major structural changes to the provider base.”

The report said that the White Paper should encourage more college mergers and “will need to strike a balance between the desire for government to exercise greater control when things go wrong, but also to give colleges the autonomy to respond to the needs of employers, learners and local labour markets”.

A holistic and integrated post-18 education system 

The report also said that the White Paper would need to provide a framework “to ensure that all adults have appropriate investment in their education and training throughout their lives so that they can be economically productive, employers get the skilled workforce to drive their business forward, and the country’s economy thrives.” 

The report suggested that the government needed to create a “more dynamic market for level 4 to 5 education” and “address how colleges will be enabled to increase their capacity to deliver these courses significantly.”

A long-term funding settlement for FE

At the heart of the White Paper needed to be a “commitment to funding colleges on a sustainable basis and creating a national network of appropriately invested in further education colleges across the country”, the report said. 

It added: “We would hope that the White Paper would codify commitments to a long-term funding plan, along the model of the 10-year plan for the National Health Service. The education select committee published proposals in 2019 for a long-term education investment plan. Proposals included, among other measures, to raise the core base rate of funding to £4,760.”