The Skills Funding Agency confirmed this week that all ESOL learners who are actively seeking work could be eligible for full funding, irrespective of whether they are in receipt of work related benefits or income related benefits.

The clarification is good news indeed and gives ESOL providers the opportunity to use the flexibility the government has granted to support the most disadvantaged and vulnerable of learners. It means that many women who were attending ESOL courses last year can return and progress on to the next level. It means that many refugees who are only in need of English language skills to unlock their skills and enter the job market will get that chance.

However some questions remain. What about those learners in part time or low paid employment, who cannot declare that they are actively seeking work? Also, how will colleges achieve their fee income targets? If the Skills Funding Agency gives colleges flexibility on fees, and ESOL learners are effectively subsidised by income from other learners’ fees, the providers may lose out in the long term.

We should also be concerned about those learners who heard that fees were going up and have already decided not to return this year. What can providers do? Greenwich Community College is texting and writing to all ex-students to encourage them to return this term and continue language learning. The College is also distributing leaflets and displaying posters with the new information.

What about those learners in part time or low paid employment, who cannot declare that they are actively seeking work?”

Some ESOL providers are also developing a declaration form that learners can sign on enrolment, stating that they are actively seeking work. We know from the Association of Colleges survey conducted in January that 21% of students access employment as a direct result of ESOL courses. So this may well be a confirmation of what exists already.

Overall, the glass is half full rather than half empty. The 55% of ESOL students who have Basic Skills needs in Literacy and Numeracy, could now be eligible for fully funded ESOL provision, at the provider’s discretion. And women with child caring responsibilities who cannot claim Job Seeker’s Allowance until their child is 7 years old will also be able to access fully funded language provision. This is good news and something to celebrate as we start the new term.

Chris Taylor is a Programme Director at NIACE, and is currently leading on a wide range of projects in ESOL, citizenship and community cohesion. 

It is an honour to be able to pay tribute to Alan Tuckett, who retired from the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education on Wednesday after serving 23 years as its Chief Executive after an inspiring career in our sector.

Professor Tuckett’s journey in adult education began in the mid-70s as a lecturer in Brighton where, after a decision by the Leader of the Council to abolish spending on informal learning, our sector’s campaigner-in-chief fought his first of many battles to defend public spending in adult learning.

But it was in 1988, after serving as one of FE’s youngest Principal’s, when Alan took to the helm of NIACE, where Alan would embark on a mission which would see him, and his organisation, become the epicentre for campaigning for the right to learning for millions of adults across the country.

Over the years, Alan’s passion and dedication has been one of the few constants in further education tallying up a series of impressive wins. Not least amongst these creating Adult Learners’ Week, which puts the spotlight on adult learners, teachers and providers to showcase and celebrate the lifechanging power adult education can wield – now in its 20^th year.

It is clear that few in education have left a legacy more laudable, more important or more powerful than the one Alan Tuckett leaves behind this week.”

Under Alan’s stewardship, NIACE has become the authoritative voice in Parliament, and elsewhere, on adult education and particularly the unindulged area of informal learning. It is in no small part down to Alan’s leadership at NIACE that has meant that when budgets across the public sector faced unprecedented cuts in spending, that the Adult Safeguarded Learning budget maintained its budget of £210million; ensuring the vast opportunities that learning provides to millions of adults will continue. More recently, Alan was central to the campaign which last week led to the policy u-turn allowing all ESOL learners seeking work full fee remission regardless of benefits status.

Today, David Hughes, formally Provider Services Director at the Skills Funding Agency , takes over at NIACE while Alan says he plans to, “practise more of what I preach – engaging in learning as a teacher and student, and to step back from organiser to supporter of NIACE’s work.” But what is our loss is the International Council for Adult Education’s gain, where Alan was elected to serve as President until 2015; the first European to hold this office.

They say the most powerful thing you can do as a leader is leave a legacy. It is clear that few in education have left a legacy more laudable, more important or more powerful than the one Alan Tuckett leaves behind this week. For this Alan, you are hereby inducted into the FE Week Hall of Fame and, for us, a #FEhero.

Shane Chowen was until recently the Vice President of FE at the NUS and is now an FE Consultant

Over the summer the annual accounts of the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) were published (click here). If anyone was interested in them, they would have read that these accounts were qualified by the SFA’s auditors – the National Audit Office. While generally in life qualifications are something to be sought, qualified accounts are a bad (and unusual) thing.

The National Audit Office judged in its qualified audit opinion: “the financial statements do not give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Skills Funding Agency and its subsidiaries as at 31 March 2011”

The auditors believed that financial reporting standards required that the SFA should have “consolidated” the accounts of further education colleges as “subsidiaries” into the agency’s own accounts because the SFA has control over colleges. (That control is in the form of the borrowing consents which otherwise independent corporation have to seek.)

The SFA declined to do this given the practical challenges of incorporating the accounts of every FE college for the year to 31 March 2011 – a task further complicated by colleges accounting to the 31 July each year on the basis of a different set of reporting standards.

Does any of this matter? Not too much in itself – but it does highlight a wider issue and a potential threat.

In his report on Internal Control, Geoff Russell, as SFA’s chief executive’s noted how the accounting treatment of colleges poses an “unexpected risk” threatening “to contradict the Government’s simplification and cost reduction policy”. This arises both from international financial reporting standards and from last October’s designation of colleges as public sector bodies by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In terms of cost-benefit analysis, there is no benefit to colleges from such a return to balance the cost.”

While Geoff Russell does not spell it out, what that means in practice is that in the future FE colleges might be asked to provide the information necessary for the SFA to consolidate all those figures into its own accounts. This would mean a Spring return in addition to the Finance Record and the Financial Plan returns. Inevitably there is a compliance cost for colleges as well as a resource required at the SFA where presumably a shrinking staff could be doing something more useful than chasing accounts and crunching numbers. In terms of cost-benefit analysis, there is no benefit to colleges from such a return to balance the cost.

Similar issues are posed for Sixth Form Colleges although the ONS classification treated them as local government bodies as, until the Education Bill becomes law, councils grant borrowing consent. That difference meant that the Young People’s Learning Agency avoided the embarrassment of qualified accounts (click here).

The DfE and BIS are promising to deal with these issues but the promised “freedoms” may not be enough to remove threat of some more new red tape.

Bob Deed is a financial consultant in the college sector tweeting as @deedconsulting