§ Mrs. MayTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on the future of community learning, its funding and the bodies that will be responsible for determining the provision of community learning in each local education authority area. [119494]
§ Mr. WicksIn our Prospectus for the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) we made it clear that adult and community learning is a vital part of the Government's plans to drive up achievement, widen participation in learning, and strengthen community confidence and capacity.
Our first consultation document on the funding of post 16 learning, published in January, confirmed the strategic contribution that local authorities, together with local Learning and Skills Councils, can make. The Learning and Skills Bill (Lords) now before Parliament includes the necessary provisions to allow this. The Secretary of State has already recognised the importance of local education authorities in adult and community learning by guaranteeing them a minimum level of funding in the first two years of the LSC, provided they maintain their spend in this area and effectively implement their lifelong learning plans.
Our second funding consultation document, to be published in May, will set out the roles of all those concerned in post 16 learning and invite comments on our proposals for funding, including the funding of adult and community learning.