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School Sixth Forms

Thank you, Mr. Hancock. I know that the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead wants to intervene. As I said to the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), I would like to conclude outlining the sequence of events so that they are clear and on the record. The letter of 27 March that was sent to schools gave them their allocations. It has since caused anger and concern among leaders, which has been reflected by their representatives in the House. There are statutory reasons why a letter had to be sent out then: it was so that schools and colleges could rightly set their budgets. That letter said""We continue to consider options for further funding, including meeting emerging pressures from the impact of the recession and further recruitment during the year, especially to deliver the September Guarantee and tackle the needs of those not in education, employment or training. We continue to work with DCSF on the funding pressure and best estimates of demand."" That letter was signalling that, beyond the estimates of learner demand that were emerging during February and March, recessionary impacts meant that demand was continuing to emerge—particularly because of the numbers of people aged 16 to 19, who were in employment but not training, losing their jobs. Such people wanted to come into learning in college and we needed to respond to that. The matter was the subject of discussions across Government, which concluded in the announcement made in the Budget. I was able to negotiate an additional £655 million from the Treasury to fund post-16 learning over two years—£251 million for this financial year and £404 million for the following financial year. That will allow us to deliver our September guarantee and not only to fund the allocations that were made wrongly on 2 March, but to go beyond those allocations. A letter was then sent to schools and colleges by the LSC on 27 April informing them about the news in the Budget and saying among other things:""This means that I can provide immediate reassurance that you will be funded for your level of recruitment for the coming year discussed with the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) in early March. However, since you last discussed your forecast levels of recruitment with the LSC earlier this year, you may have had further evidence of the likely demand by young people, or you may be in a position to stimulate additional demand to make sure more young people continue in learning rather than becoming unemployed. We therefore need your further advice and information on extra likely demand to meet the September Guarantee."" So, the LSC was signalling for the first time that schools and colleges could, indeed, come forward for additional funding if they identified additional demand to that identified in February/March.