WAG: The Rhetoric is Investment in Skills, the Reality is Cuts
27 January 2009
The WLGA is appalled by the Welsh Assembly Government’s announcement over an overall reduction of 7.43% in funding for 6th forms and FE Colleges, more than £8 million in 2009-10. This comes on the back of a very poor local government settlement for 2009-10. It has also emerged that post-16 Special Educational Needs provision will no longer be fully funded by WAG and that the funding of key skills and Adult Community Learning (ACL) are to be limited.
This cut in funding will be felt most acutely in school 6th forms across the most deprived communities in Wales. Valleys authorities will see their funding cut by 7.5% at a time when young people are being encouraged to reach their full potential and continue in education or training.
This announcement has been made on the same day that the H M Chief Inspector, Dr Bill Maxwell, has published his Annual Report which states that children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are not achieving as well as other pupils. The Chief Inspector states that standards in education and training in Wales are improving but notes that, “Our first challenge is to make sure that all learners can reach their potential, particularly those who are underachieving as a result of poverty or social disadvantage.”
Cllr Peter Fox, WLGA Spokesperson for Lifelong Learning said:
“These cuts will severely hamper local authorities and their FE and work-based-learning partners in their efforts to work collaboratively to transform post-14 learning provision. It is a major setback for the 14-19 Learning Pathways initiative. It also means significant redundancies in local authorities with all the consequent cost implications.”
“There is no justification for these cuts in 6th form funding. If they go ahead, authorities will face the choice of subsidising provision and making cuts elsewhere or telling the most vulnerable young people in our communities that they cannot receive their full entitlement.”
“The First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, has repeatedly stated that increased training and skills development is needed in order for Wales to weather the worst of the current recession. It is difficult to see how this can be achieved if the institutions providing this much needed training are facing such a significant budget cut. The announcement yesterday of 1,100 job losses at the Corus steelworks will only increase the demand for training in the most deprived areas of Wales at a time when budgets being decimated. At a time when Llanwern is being mothballed, Newport gets a cut of 7.5% in funding for post-16 learning.
The WLGA is calling on the Assembly Government to review these decisions urgently and to provide the appropriate level of funding for learners in deprived areas and those with Special Educational Needs.”