§ Mr. ChaytorTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list each further education college with a category C financial rating, together with the current deficit of each college. [68869]
§ Mr. MudieRegular assessments to the financial health of colleges are made by the Further Education Funding Council; the details of individual colleges are treated as commercial-in-confidence. At the beginning of this year, 84 of the 435 further education colleges in England were assessed as falling into financial health category C. This is an improvement on the position at the beginning of last year when 95 of the then 444 further education colleges fell into this category.
Every year the Council publishes extracts from each further education college's audited financial statements. The extracts include the operating surplus or deficit for the year. The most recent figures are for the year ending 31 July 1997 and were published in December 1998. A copy is available in the Library.