Services for young people

Memorandum submitted by the Association of Colleges

Services for young people delivered in and via Colleges

1.0 Enrichment activities within Colleges make a significant contribution to a young person’s personal development providing them with an additional outlet in which to channel their energies, and ensure that coming to College is not just a route to gaining a qualification but also one where they can develop their team work skills, meet new people and face new and exciting challenges.

1.1 In many cases the opportunities for young people are opened up to friends and siblings who are also able to participate and often classes are promoted alongside affiliated organisations and partnerships.

1.2 Colleges with a well-developed strategy for opening up their premises to community groups engaged in informal learning, including activities beyond the normal College day, find that this brings reputational gain, helps to engage those who would not otherwise come to College, and benefits recruitment over time.

1.3 There is no ready means of capturing the full range of informal learning activities in Colleges as a whole or of calculating the learner numbers involved, because the work may not have been directly funded by the Learning and Skills Council, or may not be obvious in the Individual Learner Record database, or may be melded into qualification-bearing programmes.

Services are both universal and targeted and typical examples include;

· Junior Chef programmes

· Provision of venues for local performing arts groups.

· Saturday sports club facilities

· Sports fields for local church football groups

· Facilities (sports halls etc) for local community sports groups

· Chinese language and culture school ,and other similar language and culture schools run by particular community groups

1.4 Colleges find that informal learning is a vital means of engaging disadvantaged and marginalised groups and acts as a bridge to formal learning. It can also be used to enhance the experience of learners on a course and raise their confidence, improving retention and success.

1.5 Informal learning is an important element of how Colleges contribute to partnerships for local regeneration and community cohesion, reflecting their sense of their wider responsibility to their communities. It can be used to help partners to achieve their objectives and for partners, in turn, to support colleges by enabling them to reach learners and in some cases by adding resources.

Lessons learnt about delivering services/Partnership Working

2. 0 Partnership is essential to accessing funding from a range of sources to meet local needs. Partnership must be a long-term commitment and investment and relationships need to be sustained over time and for the right motives.

2.1 Successful engagement with learners from different minority groups has only been possible through working in partnership with grassroots organisations. These organisations are run by highly talented, committed and passionate people who know their cities and their networks exceptionally well.

2.2 Colleges found that the impact of community activities usually spans wider than the intended outcome of any particular activity. They raise the College profile in the community, improve community cohesion and the inclusion of disadvantaged and marginalised groups, as well as increase the depth and breadth of partnerships between the College and other local organisations leading to improvements in joined-up thinking and working.

Future of Out of Hours Services in Colleges

3.0 Whilst many of the above activities are operated through voluntary groups, some are funded by public grants, they generally use the College either free of charge or at preferential rates. The College bears the overheads and charges only marginal costs, as part of its remit to provide community access. If funding cuts mean that the College cannot sustain extended opening hours it will need to charge the costs of caretaking, security, heating and power fully to these organisations. It is likely that some activities will disappear.

3.1 One College local manager is so concerned at the disappearance of many activities that he is considering changing the curriculum to include one evening per week that would include enrichment activities. He said that he ‘is aware that many of his learners go home and sit in front of the TV’.

3.2 VAT rules create an additional obstacle for Colleges wanting to run services for young people on a sustainable basis. Unlike Councils or schools, Colleges pay VAT on their supplies and services which they cannot pay back. This means large VAT bills on new buildings unless Colleges promise HM Revenue and Customs that the building will not be used for "business activities" for more than 5% of the time. Education for young people under the age of 19 does not count as a business activity because no fees are charged. By contrast sporting or cultural activities where fees are paid count as business activities. This can leave Colleges with a choice between running services for free (and losing a small amount of money), charging fees and paying the VAT bill (losing a large amount of money) or closing their doors. A solution would be to give Colleges the same ability to recover VAT as other public institutions, which is what the Treasury are proposing to do for academies in their consultation on the 2011 Finance Bill

3.3 Many Colleges support their services to young people from money allocated in their core education funding for additional education (tutorials) and enrichment. The Department for Education is considering ways to reduce funding per student aged 16 to 18 which may result in reductions to this funding for 2011-12. This could have consequences for the ability of some Colleges to support wider activities. Similarly the recent expansion of sporting activities has been partly funded by grants which originally came from the Department and which have matched College investment. The reduction in DFE sports funding will force Colleges to support activities from their own budgets.

December 2010