Council sets college funding targets

THE Further Education Funding Council may take the unprecedented step of dictating college targets for growth as part of its drive to achieve funding parity between institutions, it emerged this week.

The FEFC says that it is to consult colleges on how best to manage funding from next year up to 2000/2001. The council is already wrestling with a projected fall in its Government grant over the next three years and is, at the same time, working towards a level funding playing field for all colleges.

Colleges are to be consulted on a range of funding mechanisms. One likely proposal would involve for the first time the council taking a lead in setting growth targets. This would hit colleges with already high average levels hardest, since the power to manage the rate and terms of their own convergence would be seriously curtailed.

FEFC spokeswoman Patricia Stubbs said: "The new idea is that we look at each college's position and say where we want them to get to. We would direct things."

Until this year colleges received core funding and then applied for cash for any extra growth they achieved. But because the Government will not increase public spending limits the growth money is no longer available.

FE in Scotland and NI, page 6