Association of Colleges

Funding

2 July 2008:
National Funding and Finance Presentation given by Julian Gravatt, Director of Funding and Development to AoC SW Finance Directors

27 June 2008:
Next steps in 16-18 funding - presentation at Sixth Form Colleges Forum, by Julian Gravatt, Director of Funding and Development, AoC  

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AoC have produced a summary of the funding regime, which can be downloaded here:   AoC paper on college budgets and LSC funding

with new diagrams of our understanding of regulation from 2010 here:   White Paper Regulation Diagram

and diagrams of funding flows here:   White Paper Funding Diagram

The College sector is worth some £6.5bn a year, educating more 16 to 18 year olds than schools, enrolling more young adults (aged 19 to 30) than universities and helping more than three-and-a-half million people each year achieve personal goals through education and training.

Given this central role in implementing government policies, it is no surprise that the majority of college income comes from government. Colleges rely on the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), the funding body for further education, for more than 77% of their income, but the element of reliance ranges from 45% for some land based colleges to just under 99% for some sixth-form colleges.
 

The LSC, the largest quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation (QUANGO) in Britain, is responsible for allocating monies for further education in England. The new funding model, announced in late November 2007, applies to all post-16 education providers, and is an attempt to allocate funding on a fair, reasonable and equitable basis.

The iniquitous “funding gap” between school sixth forms and colleges continues to exist despite the new system, albeit at a lower rate. The range of this gap runs from a Government estimate of 4% to an AoC estimate of some 14%.

Paper relating to the new funding system are contained with in this website and can be found by clicking on the links below or on the navigation bar to the left.