Sixth form colleges

Thank you for contacting me about further education. I am proud to have within my constituency The College of Richard Collyer which provides excellent further education in addition to established 6th forms operating within secondary schools. Whatever emerges from Government evaluations I will look closely at the implications for Horsham and surrounding areas.

Across England the Government wants local employers to help ensure there is a post-16 skills system that is responsive to local economic priorities, financially resilient and able to offer high quality education and training. A series of area-based reviews is being carried out to establish how local areas can ensure this connectivity is established and maintained.

Colleges will be invited to specialise according to local economic priorities, to provide better-targeted basic skills alongside professional and technical education. Some of these will be invited to become prestigious Institutes of Technology which will be sponsored by employers, registered with professional bodies and aligned with apprenticeship standards.

The reviews are predominantly focused on general further education and sixth-form colleges in order to ensure there are high quality, financially resilient colleges across the country. Schools with sixth-forms can opt in to a review if they wish to do so have the agreement of the review's local organisers.

Colleges have the freedom and flexibility to determine how they use their Adult Skills Budget, which will be protected in cash terms at £1.5 billion, to meet the needs of their communities and plan, with local partners, which courses they can best deliver within their resources.

The Government will produce an evaluation of the area review programme and its potential to impact on groups protected by the Equality Act 2010. However, it will be for each college's governing body to accept or reject any recommendation requiring a change to their provision.

Taken together, these measures will enable around 1.7 million learners each year to develop the skills employers need with better-targeted basic skills provision alongside high quality professional and technical education at higher levels.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.