Agenda item

David Hughes, Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges (AOC) will attend to discuss with the Board how LGA and AOC can work together more collaborative on the skills agenda both nationally and locally. 

The Chair welcomed Jasbir Jhas, Senior Adviser, to the Board. She provided the Board with an update on the recent activity on the LGA’s employment and Skills work. This included the Skills Taskforce roundtables, the last of which took place at the end of March. A key issue arising from them was the need to more effectively engage relevant stakeholders. One of these is the Association of Colleges (AoC). 

Jas introduced David Hughes (DH), Chief Executive of the AOC. David talked about the AoC work, and its campaign work. 

David Hughes (DH) explained the challenges that further education (FE) colleges face. He explained that colleges had suffered a 30 percent funding cut, and that the AoC had just recently launched an independent commission on the future role of colleges.  

There was then a discussion about how the LGA and AOC can work together more collaboratively on the skills agenda both nationally and locally on issues such as apprenticeships, investment in adult learning, and a coordinated post 16 learning offer. 

The following discussion took place with members: 

·         Difficulty in meeting demand for more expensive courses when faced with significant budgetary constraints. 

·         The Board agreed to feed into the AOC’s independent Future of Colleges commission. 

Decision: 

Members noted the report and steered officers on ideas for using the momentum of the Taskforce to further develop the LGA campaign.