The FE Commissioner has repeated her warning over colleges’ use of subcontracting in her latest annual report.
Now in her second year as FE Commissioner, Shelagh Legrave also said colleges’ vulnerability to cyber-attacks and the number of “too comfortable” governors that have served more than ten years are what she sees as “persistent problems”.
The report repeats Legrave’s concerns over the quality of oversight of subcontracting first revealed by FE Week at the AoC’s annual conference in November. The Commissioner claims that economic climate is making learner recruitment harder for colleges and therefore more likely to turn to subcontracting to fulfil their contracts:
“The economic climate is causing more adults to work rather than taking training opportunities, so the temptation for colleges is to use subcontracting as a way of fulfilling contracts. There is a place for local subcontracting, but it is vital that this is overseen appropriately, both from a quality and a funding perspective” the report states.
