House of Commons
Wednesday 19 June 1996
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
POINT OF ORDER
Mrs. Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley): On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I tabled two motions in the Table Office last night, about the North Wales police. Neither has appeared on the Order Paper this morning.
Madam Speaker: I am not aware of the activities of the hon. Lady last night in relation to the Table Office, but of course I will be glad to make inquiries to find out what it was all about.
Further Education (Scotland)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Dr. Liam Fox.]
9.35 am
Mr. Dennis Canavan (Falkirk, West): I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce this debate on the very important matter of the funding of Scottish colleges of further education. Perhaps a better title for the debate would be "The underfunding of Scottish colleges of further education", because the underfunding is so serious that some colleges are rapidly approaching a crisis.
Many of the problems stem from 1993, when the Government removed Scottish colleges of further education from local education authority control. Before 1993, there was a strong element of local control and accountability, and local education authorities were able to take decisions to improve the funding of the further education colleges, taking into account local circumstances and priorities.
However, since incorporation was introduced in 1993, the 43 colleges have depended almost entirely on central Government instead of local government for funding. Since the financial year 1994-95, there has been a cut of grant in aid from £241 million to £230 million, with a further planned reduction to £211 million by the year 1998-99, making a total reduction at 1994-95 prices of £30 million or 12.5 per cent., yet there has been an increase of 23 per cent. in full-time equivalent student numbers since incorporation and an increase of 50 per cent. in students taking higher education courses in FE colleges. The Minister may tell us later that the revenue element for the current financial year increased compared with that for last year, but the extra revenue was funded by cutting the capital element.
Twenty-eight of the 43 colleges have suffered real cuts in income this year, and although the cut for any individual college has been limited to a maximum of 5 per cent.--
about 8 per cent. after taking inflation into account--there is no guarantee that there will be such a limit next year. The consequences for many colleges have been very serious. Twelve colleges suffered the maximum cuts, including some of the largest colleges in Scotland, such as Bell, Dundee, Fife and Inverness, as well as some of the smaller colleges, such as Coatbridge and Thurso. Another victim of the maximum cut is the Jewel and Esk Valley college, which suffered such a bad cut last year that the management resorted to compulsory redundancies.
The underfunding has been exacerbated by the fact that Scottish Enterprise is also cutting its training budget, which in effect will reduce the income to colleges that participate in training schemes funded by local enterprise companies.
Responsibility for student bursaries has been transferred from local education authorities to the colleges, but despite the increasing number of students the total amount for bursaries has been frozen at £45 million a year for the next three years. As a result, many students will inevitably suffer considerable hardship.
It is ironic, too, that at a time when the number of students is increasing the number of staff in many colleges is decreasing. Last year saw the first ever compulsory redundancies, and more jobs are threatened if the underfunding continues. At Falkirk college in my constituency, the college authorities have apparently run out of volunteers opting for early retirement; and the Scottish Office pension scheme for early retirers is limited to employees over the age of 50. Since incorporation, more than 100 employees, including teaching and support staff, have left Falkirk college. The financial restrictions imposed by the Government also have a limiting effect on salary negotiations. That in turn has an adverse effect on staff morale.
Education is not, however, simply a job for teachers and lecturers. Teachers' jobs are very important, of course, but what is even more important is the valuable service that teachers provide by improving the educational, training and job opportunities of students--including the 200,000 students who attend Scottish colleges of further education. If there is a significant reduction in the number of teachers, that could lead to larger class sizes, and it could have an adverse effect on the quality of education.
There is also a danger of some entire courses being discontinued, and even of the scrapping of whole areas of the curriculum. Specialist courses will be available in fewer colleges, so students will be obliged to travel further and colleges may feel obliged to drop courses whose cost per student is relatively high--for instance, in construction and engineering.
The Government have also frozen the intakes to higher education courses in FE colleges and have stopped the introduction of new higher national certificate, higher national diploma and degree courses. Yet Ministers tell us that they agree about the need to increase the number of people who are educated and vocationally trained to high standards.
This country does not compare well with our major industrial competitors in the proportion of our work force with full craft and technician qualifications. The FE colleges have a key role in providing such qualifications, which are essential to our economic and industrial regeneration. It therefore does not make economic sense to deprive the colleges of the resources to do the job.
The cuts also affect buildings maintenance and equipment, and students will find it difficult to reach their full potential if they are in oversized classes, in overcrowded classrooms or ill-equipped workshops. Later, the Minister may refer to the private finance initiative, but the PFI will not be enough to renew or replace dilapidated buildings or obsolete equipment; and some colleges may be forced to cut recurrent expenditure in order to fund essential capital projects.
The reason for the crisis facing many colleges is not just the inadequacy of the total grant in aid from the Scottish Office. There are also allegations about the unfairness of the formula used to allocate to each college its share of the grant. The total grant is divided up according to SUMs, or student units of measurement, generated by each college in the previous financial year. A SUM is defined as 40 hours of teaching delivered to a student.
Although some other factors are also taken into account, there is considerable concern that the formula does not take sufficient account of the diversity of the 43 college system. Some colleges are large, others are small. Some are in urban areas, others in small towns or rural areas. Some are polytechnics, others are virtually monotechnics. Some may have stronger community links than others.
The larger colleges complain that all 43 colleges receive the same amount of "institutional factor", irrespective of size. The institutional factor currently amounts to about £250,000 a year, which can be as much as 10 per cent. of the budget of a small college, compared with only 2 per cent. of the budget of a large one. The polytechnics complain that the formula discriminates against them because they have a greater proportion of higher education courses--for example, higher national certificate courses--which are more expensive to operate but which attract less money than further education courses under the existing formula. Yet the skills gap in this country is mainly at HNC or SVQ III and IV levels, which--ironically--are the worst funded courses in Scottish FE colleges.
The formula also discriminates against colleges in areas with low potential for assistance from the European social fund or the European regional development fund. This could amount to a difference of as much as £1 million a year between the amounts of help available for colleges of similar size.
There are also complaints about the fact that the funding is based on past student numbers, thereby limiting the opportunity to fund future developments, especially if high capital investment is required for new proposals. Such projects at Falkirk college would include biotechnology, food technology, petrochemical plant and mechatronics. The college management has set the laudable objective of becoming mid-Scotland's polytechnic by the year 2000, but Government underfunding will make it more difficult to achieve that objective.
The volatile operation of the funding formula has also been criticised. It tends to produce some large annual variations in the budgets of some colleges, so that it is quite possible for a college to make people redundant one year and take on additional staff the following year.
Obviously, that does not help with continuity or planning. Such volatility could be alleviated if the funding formula were based on the numbers of full-time equivalent students--a methodology already used by the higher education funding councils. If the core funding for each college were supplemented by development funding, that would also help with planning.
Moreover, the Government should stop the capping of higher education in those colleges, and should end the unfair anomaly that higher education courses in FE colleges attract less funding than further education courses. The funding of higher education courses should be the same in the FE colleges as in the universities, and the Government should look at the possibility of making the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council responsible for the funding of all higher education in Scotland, both in universities and in colleges of further education.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |