Colleges might get jobs reward

Colleges in England might be given funding according to the long-term jobs they help people into rather than the qualifications people achieve.

Skills Secretary John Denham sees the idea - which came from some colleges - as a useful response to the recession.

There are more than 200,000 benefits claimants in further education.

The suggestion is in the government's annual grant letter to the Learning and Skills Council, raising its budget for next year by £500m to £12.1bn.

The letter says the government is "very interested in exploring with colleges and providers ways in which their budgets can be used flexibly within key priorities where the learning programme delivers sustainable employment outcomes".

It says: "Such an outcome could be keeping the newly unemployed in touch with work through structured work experience, providing them with tailored work programmes that lead to sustainable employment."

Training

Speaking at the Association of Colleges conference, in Birmingham, Mr Denham said he also wanted to see colleges working with companies that were temporarily moving to a four-day week.

There is £30m to support colleges helping local businesses affected by the economic downturn.

The budget for the Train to Gain programme to assist small businesses to improve their staff skills is increasing by 16% to £925m.

Mr Denham said: "Many people are worried about losing their jobs and many have already done so.

"This must be something we address through all of our resources not just through additional programmes around the margins.

"When someone is facing redundancy - or, often these days, they are let go at the end of a contract - they need to know that colleges will be there to help them with advice and support as well as education and training.

"I want to free up mainstream capacity and funds from within the system so that you are able to help."

The whole approach reinforces the work-focused remit that ministers have given the further education sector in recent years.

This has been in part to because colleges have been used to encourage older teenagers who have left school without basic qualifications to develop numeracy and literacy skills.

It has been at the expense of traditional, more leisure-oriented courses for adult learners - whose champions argue they perform a valuable social function in keeping older people active and healthy.

Mr Denham said the budget needed to be focused on "qualifications that help people get on in work" and directed "away from shorter courses that don't".

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