November 2001

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ACM TO MEET THE MINISTER

ACM representatives are due to meet Margaret Hodge MP early in November. The Association will be represented by John Rockett, President, John Lowe, Chair of the Employment and Services Committee and Peter Pendle, Chief Executive and General Secretary. The meeting is part of the Association’s continuing strategy to increase ACM’s influence on key decision makers. It follows Peter Pendle’s earlier meeting with senior civil servants in Sheffield.

At the meeting with Margaret Hodge, ACM’s representatives will raise the following issues:

  • Funding - until the underlying funding issues have been resolved and further education is seen as being treated equally with other parts of the education system, it will not be able to fully deliver the Government’s objectives. It will become increasingly difficult to recruit the high quality teachers and managers required to be successful. For example, until pay settlements are fully funded, as with the schools sector, increases will continue to be applied unevenly across the sector, or not at all.

  • Reduction in the number of funding streams - ACM was pleased to note the Minister’s commitment to reduce the number of funding streams in higher education. The association will be seeking a similar commitment in further education.

  • Bureaucracy - ACM members report a significant and alarming increase in bureaucracy since the creation of the LSC. The multitude of separate funding streams that colleges deal with each have their own rules and accountability. Further education is the most intensively audited of the education sectors, at about 120 days audit a year. Management and other resources absorbed by excessive bureaucracy are resources diverted away from quality improvement. ACM will call for a much lighter touch provider review process with more intensive follow up for colleges causing concern.

  • FE pay - it is vital that any solutions to the current difficulties with the further education sector pay are applied not just to a section of the workforce but to all employees. ACM strongly believes that funding should be provided to extend the pay initiative to all staff within the sector and to restore the historical difference in pay with school employees. TPI must be extended to all staff.

  • Student support - ACM is concerned to note reports that the Government is not convinced of the benefits of Education Maintenance Awards (EMA’s) in further education. ACM believes that they have a vital role to play in widening participation, improving recruitment, retention and achievement. The Association will be seeking assurances from the Minister that EMA’s will be supported and expanded in the future.

    A full report on the meeting with Margaret Hodge will appear in the next newsletter.