§ Mr. Brandon-Bravoasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether the forthcoming Education Bill will contain any provisions on local authority maintained further education.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerYes, the Government intend that the forthcoming Bill should contain provisions on maintained further education in England and Wales. We propose that, as with schools, local education authorities should be placed under a duty to delegate financial powers to colleges. We also propose to reform the composition and role of college governing boldies. And in order to provide a secure foundation for these changes, we propose to reform the legal basis of further education, in particular by restating the duty to provide further education and by repealing the provisions in the Education Act 1944 on FE schemes.
The Government will be issuing shortly a consultation paper setting out our proposals in more detail.