LSC RIP - Chronicle of a death foretold

Today the government announced that the Learning and Skills Council will be axed in 2010. It will be replaced by a Young People's Learning Agency, charged with helping local councils work together in providing for 14-19 learners, and a Skills Funding Agency (SFA) to administer funding to colleges and training providers.

When it was set-up in 2000, the LSC was built very much on the basis of the local Training and Enterprise Councils. If it had been built around a regionalised and reformed Further Education Funding Council (its predecessor), its early years may have been happier.

While the writing was on the wall for some time, now colleges will now be preparing again for the unknown. Let’s hope the government manages these changes effectively without destabilising and fragmenting the learning and skills landscape.