Tough new further education rules to be announced today will include the creation of a commissioner to be sent in to colleges falling into any of these categories: an "inadequate" Ofsted grade, financial trouble or failure to hit learner success targets.
The FE Commissioner will be tasked with turning the college in question around within a year, and will report directly to government ministers.
Powers would include the ability to bestow "Administered College" status on an institution, which would mean the loss of powers like staff changes, expenditure or asset transfers.
The Commissioner would also be able to recommend the dismissal of governors, and in extreme cases, could call for the dissolution of a failing college.
Skills Minister Matthew Hancock is announcing these measures, together with an investment in 47 colleges totalling £214 million, under the government’s Rigour and Responsiveness in Skills strategy, saying: “Where colleges are failing learners we will be knocking on their doors and take swift and effective action.
“It is a dereliction of duty to let failing colleges teach young people. We will not fail in our duty to act.
“All providers should meet tough standards of rigour and responsiveness. Through these reforms we will be able to intervene without hesitation where they fall short.”
The Association of Colleges welcomed the FE Commissioner role, but called for more clarification. Chief Executive Martin Doel says: “While we wholeheartedly support the proposition that students, businesses and communities served by all colleges deserve the best, our experience is that the triggers for intervention suggested in these proposals may only be required in a very small number of cases each year.
“In the very rare instance of a significant failure there may well be a benefit to having a clear and quicker resolution and we are therefore interested to know more about the role of the FE Commissioner in this regard.”
A spokesperson from the government says it was hoped that the FE Commissioner would be recruited by June, and that operations would start in August.
